Torchbearers
by cglasgow
Summary: Post-ME2. After Commander Shepard's loss, the people she has led and inspired follow her example to continue the mission against the Reapers. But first they must discover the truth about her death. Kaidancentric. Rated M for strong language. Abandoned.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all related trademarks, characters, story elements, and likenesses are the property of Bioware, not me.

**Chapter 1**

**The Citadel: Flux**

Club Flux was one of the hottest places on the Wards, or so its advertising ran. Gambling, dancing, exotic liquor, it contained diversions fit for virtually any sentient species in Citadel space. Between off-duty personnel from the nearby Citadel Security headquarters, tourists, and slumming diplomats and dignitaries down from the Presidium, spending a night at Flux greatly increased your chances of finding someone interested, and compatible, to go home with.

Commander Kaidan Alenko, Systems Alliance Military, sat staring into his drink and ignoring all of the above.

_Three months. Three months since I… saw… her on Horizon. Almost one month since the Normandy was reported disappearing into the Omega-4 relay. And here I sit, fiddling around on the Citadel waiting to deliver my testimony to some damned Biotics Reparations Subcommit-_

"Good evening, Commander. I'm very glad to find you here." A very familiar voice broke into his thoughts. Turning around on his stool, Kaidan then shot to his feet at the sight of his old CO.

"Admiral Anderson, sir!"

"At ease, Commander," said Anderson gently. "Civilian clothes, no salutes. That having been said, congratulations on your promotion. It was well-deserved."

"Deserved, maybe sir. But not as well-deserved as some others," Kaidan said wistfully.

"I know how you feel, Commander," Anderson sighed. "I miss her too. You think you're the only one who comes down to this club from time to time because it's the place we planned how to break the original _Normandy_ out of lockdown and stop Sovereign? How do you think I knew where to find you?"

Kaidan looked thoughtfully at Anderson's serious expression, and thought over the implications of his last remark. "This isn't just a chance meeting to talk over old times, is it sir?"

"No, Commander," Anderson said gravely. "It's not. We'll talk in the shuttle."

**Alliance Citadel Defense Squadron: SSV **_**New Mombasa**_

Both men, now clad in their uniforms, stepped out of the transport shuttle's airlock and into the Alliance cruiser, one of many doing combat space patrol around Citadel Station. Kaidan, his face set in an expressionless mask, wasn't even conscious of the ship's VI calmly announcing "Admiral, Alliance Navy, boarding. Commander, Alliance Navy, boarding." Or of the ship's commanding officer, saluting and welcoming Admiral Anderson aboard before being dismissed with a nod. He only had ears for the news Anderson had given him in the transport shuttle, news still ringing in his ears.

"You're _certain_ Commander Shepard is dead, sir? We believed that once before." _I believed that once before._

"And if it wasn't for Cerberus being willing to spend 4 billion credits and a lot of highly experimental nano-technology helping restore the tissues of a vacuum-desicaated… survivor… we'd have been right the first time. No, Commander. The man I debriefed said that she took fire and went down hard… and can personally testify that her body was not taken back abord the _Normandy_ before they left the Collector station, which means it was left behind. And the station was immediately purged afterwards. We can't even hope for another miracle like the one before."

"I… I don't mean to… I just can't believe she's finally gone. Admiral." Kaidan forced out. _Keep it together, Alenko. You can't break down on the main deck of an Alliance starship. You can't do it in front of the Admiral!_

"I don't want to either, Alenko." Admiral Anderson whispered. "But we have to. I'm sorry."

"At least… at least she did it saving the galaxy again, huh Skipper?" Kaidan said, as he and Anderson started moving down the corridor again. "That's… something, right?"

"It was something amazing, all right. One experimental, upgraded frigate and a squad of misfits recruited from every corner of the galaxy, and she went through a mass relay no ship has ever returned from before, took on an entire army of Reaper servitors in the center of their power, and defeated them all." Anderson said heavily, stepping into the ship's elevator.

"And died in the process," Kaidan spat out. "God _damn_ the Illusive Man for setting her up on that suicide mission! If he had proof about the Collectors' involvement, why not give it to us? We could have sent a dreadnaught! Or a fleet! We could have-"

"Yes. We could have." Anderson interrupted, as the elevator doors slid open and they stepped out. "And we didn't. And I will never forgive myself for not doing more."

"You couldn't have done more, Admiral. You couldn't even convince Udina and the Council to give her and her evidence a hearing. They just… didn't want to listen." _And neither did I, _Kaidan thought to himself reproachfully.

"Which is why it's up to us to do something, Commander. That's why I quietly pulled a few diplomatic strings to have you brought to the Citadel, ostensibly for the reparations subcomittee. In reality it was so we could meet, unofficially… and I could introduce you to someone."

"Someone? Your… eyewitness, sir?"

"Yes," Anderson said with a flicker of distaste. "Used to be one of ours, a former Alliance soldier. Before he became one of the Illusive Man's."

The two men stopped outside one the cruiser's briefing room, and Admiral Anderson nodded to the marines on guard outside it. After being ID-checked and scanned, they entered the room… and Kaidan looked up at a man almost a head taller than himself, and outweighing him by eighty pounds, with a close-shaven head and dark-colored skin, darker even than Anderson's. The man, somehow looking military even in plain civilian clothing, got up out of one of the chairs and stood to attention as the two officers entered.

"Mr. Taylor," Admiral Anderson stated evenly. "This is Commander Kaidan Alenko. I invited him here because he used to be one of Commander Shepard's crew on the original _Normandy_. And you're going to finish telling the two of us everything that you started to tell me."

* * * *

"And that's the story, Commander." Jacob Taylor finished, having spent over an hour bringing Kaidan up to date on all the events involving Commander Shepard's resurrection, mission against the Collectors, and second death.

"So the Collector base _wasn't_ destroyed?", Kaidan interjected. "But wouldn't that mean-?"

"Not _physically_ destroyed, Commander," Taylor said. "But Miranda - Operative Lawson – re-set the bomb to cause a measured neutron pulse from the core reactor, instead of an uncontrolled explosion. Any organic life in or within half a mile of the base at the moment of detonation would have been sterilized."

"So Cerberus has possession of the Collectors' base, and all the Reaper technology within it?" Anderson said, shocked. "Are you certain? From your account, you'd withdrawn from the battle before the final conclusion."

"Yes sir, Admiral. I was one of the two people – our krogan, Grunt, being the other one – that Commander Shepard had detailed to escort the _Normandy's_ surviving crew back to the ship. But I was present at the initial debriefings the Illusive Man held after we returned, and heard Operative Lawson testify both to Shepard's death, and what she'd done to the bomb immediately after Shepard died fighting the… proto-Reaper, I guess you'd call it. The base's survival I know from firsthand experience, on the _Normandy's_ exterior view as we pulled away. Likewise, the headcount of who we had onboard… and who we didn't."

"And Garrus? Tali?" Kaidan asked, thickly.

"I'm sorry, Commander. Garrus Vakarian never returned to the ship either. Thane Krios told me that Garrus had taken a direct particle beam hit to the head from a Praetorian, as they were fighting together to hold the door while Commander Shepard, Operative Lawson, and Justicar Samara went to place the bomb. As for Tali'Zorah… her and Legion had gotten cut off from the rest of the team by falling debris when they were retreating back to the _Normandy_ after the bomb was placed. They weren't onboard when we pulled out… which means they're dead. Neither were Garrus' or Commander Shepard's remains. It was a complete 'whoever fell behind was left behind' clusterfuck."

"Dear God," Kaidan husked out. _I can't believe it. A friendly geth? A friendly geth fighting alongside Tali, a quarian? And Tali dead? That sweet kid, dead? And my old friend Garrus, also dead? Dear God, how much more?_

"Do you need a minute, Alenko?" Anderson asked gently.

"I'll… be fine, sir. So… Taylor. You were Cerberus. You obviously believed in what they were doing. What made you decide to jump ship back to the Alliance? Especially considering that you had to know what kind of welcome you'd be in for? Hell, if the Admiral wasn't afraid that the Illusive Man's information network would pick up on you the instant formal charges were filed or you were detained, you'd be in an Alliance prison right now, not just informal house arrest on this cruiser."

"My service with Cerberus was under certain conditions," Taylor shot back forcefully. "Conditions the Illusive Man violated with how he acted after we returned. Especially with what he tried to do with the _Normandy_ survivors who _weren't_ Cerberus."

"You mean locking them up incommunicado, and with every appearance that it would be indefinitely." Anderson stated.

"And having them shot when they protested," Jacob said flatly. "Samara was the first to go. She said her oath had been to Shepard alone, and only for the duration of the mission, and that Cerberus had no right to detain her once she'd debriefed herself. And then she started to walk right towards the shuttle bay, and moved me aside when I asked her to stop. Just threw me into the wall… and she could have biotically crushed me like a coffee cup, if she'd really wanted to. And then the heavy security mechs opened up, and before I could get back on my feet they'd put enough rockets into her to vaporize a tank. I only found out later that day that the Illusive Man had been monitoring the situation in real-time, and activated the defenses manually."

"This was the day after you returned? And the fight with the justicar… that's when the krogan made a break for it?" Anderson asked.

"As soon as he heard the gunfire from down in his quarters. We'd been having enough trouble keeping Grunt confined as is. I wasn't present for that fight, but I saw Grunt in combat several times on our mission. I'm certain he did some major damage before they brought him down, but I saw what was left of him being carried down to the medical labs later."

"And this… retired assassin? that Shepard recruited? Thane Krios?" Kaidan asked.

"Vanished as soon as the trouble started, from what I was told. Not surprising. Krios was the best at what he did when he was active, and I'm sure he'd already been measuring the defenses of the base and planning his escape routes ahead of time. I still don't know how in the hell he could have gotten from where he started to the shuttle bay and away, but that shuttle damn sure didn't fly itself."

"But he was dying already, from what you told me. Kepral's Syndrome." Anderson said.

"That he was. He had about six months left to live when we recruited him… less, now. But Krios was all about dying on your own terms, not anyone else's. I guess he didn't want to do it stuck in a space station while the Illusive Man figured out what the hell to do with people who knew too much."

"So… you, this Operative Lawson, Grunt, Thane Krios, and Samara all made it back to the _Normandy_," Kaidan said. "That means you lost…"

"Garrus Vakarian, Tali'Zorah, Legion, Professor Mordin Solus, and Subject Zero… Jack. They all died fighting like hell, but… the odds were on none of us surviving. I suppose only half was better than we could have expected."

"And what about Joker? Dr. Chakwas?" _Two of my old shipmates in Cerberus too? What was that about? Does the Illusive Man have mind control powers like the Reapers? … you watch too much bad holovid, Alenko._

"Still alive and healthy… and working for Cerberus… as of the time I left the station. Which was as soon as I could get myself on a courier mission planetside, and then disappear. Three days after Samara and Grunt caught it, and Krios escaped."

"And it took you several more weeks to make it to Alliance space, and get discreetly in contact with me." Anderson interjected. "How did you manage that, Mr. Taylor?"

"I might be a grunt, Admiral, but that doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I didn't spend a couple years as an Alliance Corsair without learning a little something about how to fake a shuttle crash, or how to do interstellar travel off-grid. Figuring out who in the Alliance Military to contact without running straight into a Cerberus sympathizer was harder… but I remembered what Commander Shepard had said about you once, when the subject came up. 'The most honorable CO she'd ever had.' And we'd come here with the _Normandy_ right after we scouted Freedom's Progress, so she could speak with you."

"And so here we all are," Kaidan said. "You didn't bring me here just to hear about the Commander's death, Admiral. And you didn't go to all this trouble to keep Taylor here out of a cell and Cerberus from knowing he's still alive, unless you had a use for him."

"You're right, Commander. I didn't. We're here because the greatest threat to all life is still out there, and the Council and the Alliance still don't believe it exists. And we can't just sit on our backsides any more and wait for Shepard to save us. Shepard's gone. It's time we did something. It's _past_ time we did something."

"Admiral, if you're going to try and fight the Reapers, I'm with you." Jacob Taylor stated passionately. "You want me to testify on the Council floor on live galactic TV, I'll do it. You want me to debrief to Alliance High Command from a cell on death row, I'll do it. You find another Collector base and want me to charge it single-handed with a backpack nuke, I'll do it. Whatever you need done. I won't just sit and wait for the Reapers to harvest us all, no matter what else anyone is or isn't doing. I screwed up trusting Cerberus. For all I know, I'm screwing up by trusting you. But as long as I'm alive I _will_ keep fighting, however I can."

_Damn, Taylor, you really are a fanatic, aren't you?_ _But… wouldn't Shepard have said the same thing, in your place? Wouldn't I_?_ … not that I'm going to be joining Cerberus in this or any other lifetime._

"Me too, Admiral." Kaidan said, hot on Taylor's heels. "Except for the single-handed with a nuke part. Once was enough."

Anderson smiled, almost involuntarily, before continuing on. "The Council adamantly doesn't want to believe in the Reapers. Alliance High Command thinks I'm either naïve or a crackpot, what with me always protesting to them about the Reapers. The galaxy needs to unite against them, and that won't happen until solid proof is delivered. Proof even the most ostrich-like politician can't ignore. And right now, one person and one person only holds this proof."

"The Illusive Man." Taylor spit out.

"You want me to track down someone that every intelligence agency in the galaxy hasn't gotten so much as a sniff of in over a decade of trying, Admiral? I'll do my best… but I can't make you any promises." Kaidan said.

"No, Commander. I don't expect you to single-handedly bring in the Illusive Man. But from what Mr. Taylor has told us, right now the Illusive Man's primary focus is going to be on something that we know exactly where it is."

"The Collector's base at the galactic core." Kaidan said.

"Which can only be reached through one place – the Omega-4 relay – and by only one ship – the second _Normandy_." Taylor said.

"Unless the Illusive Man has dismounted the Reaper IFF you mentioned, Taylor, and placed it on another ship," Admiral Anderson pointed out. "Which is why I'm making your mission to find that device, and bring it in to the Alliance. With it, we can cut off the Illusive Man's continued access to Reaper technology, and at the same time send a ship to bring back undeniable proof for the Council!"

"And… Mr. Taylor's role in this?" Kaidan asked. Jacob leaned forward attentively.

"That's… what I'm debating with myself, Commander." Anderson stated gravely. "I've seen your record, Taylor. You were a first-class soldier, one of the best. And your actions in the _Arcturian Jade_ incident and the biowarfare plot against the Council immediately following would likely have gotten you the Star of Terra, if you'd still been in Alliance service at the time. But _Cerberus_? You know what kind of scum they are even better than I do! And how they work… even your defection, your testimony… how can I trust this isn't all some smoke and mirrors by the Illusive Man? How can I trust you?"

"Then don't trust me, Admiral." Taylor said. "Send the Commander here out with whoever else you can pick for him, and lock me up somewhere they have to pipe in the daylight. I can't say I don't have it coming, and while I think I could be a valuable asset to the mission you're setting up, I'll be nothing but dead weight if Commander Alenko spends all his time just waiting for a shot in the back."

"I'll take him, Admiral." Kaidan interjected.

"You'll… Alenko, are you sure? You've just met him! How can you judge?"

"Admiral, I know how you feel about Cerberus, especially after what they did to Admiral Kahoku. If Taylor's record is impressive enough that it'll make you even _consider_ putting him anywhere other than an isolation cell, then it must be something stellar. And… I'm N7 special operations trained, sir, and I was right alongside the Commander when we learned everything we originally knew about Cerberus, but they've outwitted and outfought some of the best in the galaxy when it comes to espionage. I'm going to need a Cerberus insider-"

"_Former_ insider." Jacob stated forcefully.

"- if I'm to have any real chance."

_And if I can't believe in second chances, then I might as well not go on this mission myself._

* * * *

**Author's Notes:** Yes, Commander Shepard is really dead. They will not discover her miraculously alive later. Not only did ME2 canon already use up the quota of that, this story is intended to a continuation fanfic about how the various people she led from ME1 and ME2 will continue on without her, inspired by her example.

As the nature of the Mass Effect games ensures that Commander Shepard is a character who potentially comes in infinite variety, I feel it necessary to outline that the Shepard of this continuity is such: femShep, largely Paragon, Kaidan romance, Ashley died on Virmire, Wrex lives, Council saved, Udina becomes Councilor.

And for people who don't like Kaidan; sorry, but he's going to be the main protagonist of this fanfic. This story is being written with only partial attention paid to who is and is not the author's personal favorite: regardless of my feelings on a character, I'm not going to grossly violate the internal logic of the setting or canon just to shoehorn people in or out. If I really don't' like a character, I'll just try not to use them at all, but who I use and how I use them will be only partially dictated by emotional bias. The only tweaks to continuity I will try to make will be those to remove elements that were mandated in order to make the game playable, at the expense of story logic (such as the game not allowing Commander Shepard to die on the Suicide Mission unless the entire party had been lost first, which is not the case here).

As for the Kaidancentric: its pretty much necessary that if any of the game's old playable cast is going to be tapped to "replace" Shepard as senior Alliance officer active on the mission, its going to be Kaidan. Even with her promotion in ME2, Ashley is still only senior enlisted, not officer material: she's not going to be commanding any ships or going around the galaxy getting mixed-up in high-level intrigue or politics. But hey, I'm giving him Jacob Taylor for his senior NCO, and other cast members will be showing up and joining in as soon as the storyline allows, so hopefully even people who aren't Kaidan fans will still have something to emotionally invest in.

At any rate, thank you all for reading, and hope you like the fic. Now, on to the next chapter.

With thanks to ChaosBurnFlame, my first beta reader, and Pendaran, my best friend who is better at coming up with titles than I am.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Citadel: Alliance Naval Intelligence Safe House #4**

The two men sat in the modest apartment, tucked away inconspicuously in the middle of one of the Citadel's lower-class residential wards. Intended to allow Alliance covert operatives access to secure communications, Alliance information networks, and a small cache of supplies without requiring them to openly approach any Alliance military facility, it had been turned over to Alenko and Taylor by Admiral Anderson for use as their their temporary working headquarters.

Kaidan sat at the desk, multiple holo-displays open in front of him each scrolling its own individual fountain of data. Behind him, Jacob paced impatiently up and down the carpet.

"With all due respect, Commander, its been _two days_. We're burning daylight just sitting here. How many more data correlations can you run?"

"As many as I need to find a clear picture, Mr. Taylor. The Illusive Man is a formidable opponent. As soon as we start acting openly against Cerberus, our safety factor goes way down-"

"I didn't sign up for this to be _safe_, Commander." Jacob spat back.

"And I didn't sign up for this to _fail_, Taylor," Kaidan retorted, turning around to look at him. "Until we can start getting results solid enough that Admiral Anderson can take them to Alliance command and get us real backup, we will be all alone out there. You're supposed to be a professional, Taylor. Tactical evaluation: How long do we last by ourselves against Cerberus making a full-scale effort to kill us? And after we successfully escape and evade, _if_ we do so, how much progress do we make on our mission _after_ having been forced to break contact?"

Kaidan laid both palms flat on the arms of his chair, preparing to stand up if need be. Him and Jacob locked eyes.

"Not far enough… sir." Jacob grudgingly admitted.

"So until _we_ can find a target that offers sufficient odds of success, we are staying right here. We will check our damn targets. We will wait for the computer to give us a damned firing solution. And we will _not_ eyeball it. We are _not_ cowboys shooting it from the hip!" Kaidan finished passionately.

Taylor stared at him expressionlessly for a moment, lip starting to twitch. Kaidan stared back… until, unable to restrain himself any longer, he snorted. Jacob's own deadpan mask slipped at that point.

"Are they _still_ using that speech in boot camp, Commander?", Jacob said, chuckling.

"Practically word-for-word. They make instructors watch a training vid and rehearse it. I actually delivered it to a class at Staff College once, just to see their faces."

"Hah! But our joking around isn't getting us there any faster than our arguing with each other. So…"

Kaidan tapped a key to close out all the holodisplays, then rose up out of his chair and started pacing, as Jacob sat down on the couch and picked up his coffee mug. "So we ignore the churn here and go back, review it all from the beginning. Basic protocol: what does Cerberus do when they suspect a location to be compromised?"

"As I said before, they move out. They can't afford to do it on every little attack of nerves, but if the operator in charge of the cell even just has a strong hunch that the site is compromised, the Illusive Man won't chew them out for an emergency relocate."

"Check. But it occurs to me that if this is something Cerberus does routinely, then they have a drill for it. What's the procedure? I mean, exactly, in detail?"

"Each major operational site is expected to have at least two alternate sites in reserve, already plotted out and cleared of squatters at the start of a project. There's all sorts of abandoned refueling stations or outposts around. Uncharted worlds you can drop prefabs on. Things like that. And at the primary site, all personnel and equipment has to be ready to be loaded up and gone on 12 hours' notice."

"Hmmm." Kaidan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That wouldn't work for heavy equipment, would it? Or large, delicate installations. Things like shipyard cradles, industrial nano-foundries. What does Cerberus do with those?"

"Generally, we do heavy industry work off-site, through commercial fronts, and just buy finished equipment. For things like that done in-house, what we do with the gear during an emergency relocate is to abandon it. Or blow it in place, if its something whose capture intact would be a security risk."

Kaidan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Wouldn't that place an operation on hold until you could replace the specialized equipment in question? From your debrief, the Illusive Man is very generous with funding. Does he—"

"Hey, you're right." Jacob said thoughfully. "For things like that, redundant sets of gear and stores is purchased at the beginning of an operation. Better to have it and not need it than the other way around, that's his philosophy."

"But this equipment couldn't be stored at the alternate sites themselves, as Cerberus leaves those abandoned in space until they need them. That's just asking for every two-bit salvage artist in space to help himself as he wanders by. They'd need to store it somewhere else, through a 'commercial front', and ship it out as and when needed."

"I follow you. We know that Cerberus will have moved the facility where the _Normandy_ pulled in for its post-mission shakedown, the one I defected from. But where they moved it to will need at least some of the same equipment as the base I left. And so…"

"You make up a list of what you can remember, of some of the things too large to take with them, that they'd need to have replaced as soon as they arrived at their new home. And the name of the vendors that your cell leader originally ordered that gear from. Then we go there, and see who made additional purchases of the same equipment sets… and where they were instructed to forward them."

"Off the top of my head, I can make up a list of several items that would fit that profile. But Miranda – Operative Lawson always handled the financial details herself for operational security reasons, so I wouldn't know who exactly where she purchased them from. But as security chief it was part of my job to monitor movements in and out, so what I _can_ tell is you what planet she sent the transport to, to pick this stuff up."

"Well, don't leave me in suspense, Mr. Taylor."

"Illium."

**Illium: Nos Astra Spaceport**

"I am sorry, Mr. Francis." the prim young asari customs officer said calmly. "Your bodyguard's weapon is showing up on our scans as illegally modified. You are free to go, but he will have to remain here to answer additional questions."

"Well, I'm not going to be walking around 'the gateway to the Terminus Systems' without my personal security!", Kaidan Alenko said pompously, tugging a finger at the uncomfortable collar of his expensive business suit.

"Boss, this is bull _shit_." Jacob Taylor said coarsely, also wearing an expensive suit. Waving his hand at the customized Carnifex heavy pistol currently laid out on the custom officer's counter. "I've taken this baby here straight through customs on Earth without tripping a single flag. This is just a shakedown!"

"This is Illium, Mr. Hoskins." the customs officer frowned disapprovingly. "We do not indulge in the 'shakedown' here. We are dedicated to the principle of free and unrestricted commerce. But we still have laws."

"All right, all right," Kaidan said impatiently. "Ronald, let's go and answer their questions so we can get moving. I do _not_ want to be late for my appointment."

"If you say so, boss," Jacob growled. The customs officer nodded at the security guard nearby, who escorted the two travelers back to her supervisors' desk. As 'Ronald Hoskins, private security consultant' blustered and stammered unconvincingly through an ever-increasing list of rationalizations as to why his personal defense weapon somehow managed to violate even Illium's lax carry laws, his 'business executive' employer stared impatiently around the office, then sat down at one of the desk chairs and started conducting a financial analysis on his omnitool, uncaring as to the plight of his employee. Eventually, 'Hoskins' yielded with ill grace to having his weapon confiscated by Nos Astra port security in lieu of charges, and he and his employer were released.

"Did you get it?", Jacob said, as they walked across the concourse. They stopped at a weapons dealer briefly to purchase a replacement weapon for Taylor, and continued on.

"Worked like a charm," Kaidan replied. "The customs supervisor was so busy rolling her eyes at your 'obnoxious human thug' routine that she never paid any attention to me sitting there. Took a few minutes to get through her office system's firewall without tripping a flag, but we've got the customs declarations for that particular transport you flagged, for the last time they cleared port."

"Which declaration will have the vendors' names on the bills of lading, meaning we know whose system to hack to find out what Cerberus front placed any replacement orders, and where they shipped."

"As to that… I'm hoping our next stop will be able to provide us that shipping information, without us having to do more hacking ourselves."

"Dr. T'Soni? Are you sure, Commander? According to the Illusive Man's dossier on her, she was in tight with the Shadow Broker. And I wasn't in the office with them when Commander Shepard met with her the last time, but she seemed… disappointed, somehow. Surprised, at least."

"I'm not going to let Liara find out that Shepard's dead from the newsvid or some intel report she pulls out of the Shadow Broker's network, Taylor. Our mission's too important to divert course across the galaxy for personal reasons, but if we have to be here anyway, then I can't avoid this."

"If you say so. But announcing ourselves and our mission to a galactic information broker doesn't sound to me like the best way to stay in the shadows."

"You said yourself, the Illusive Man's dossier on Liara recommended against recruiting her for your mission because of her ties to the Shadow Broker. If that isn't a solid indicator that his network has its interests opposed to the Shadow Broker's, I don't know what is."

"Point. But still… Shepard wasn't reacting like someone who'd just reunited with an old shipmate that I could see. Watch your back."

**Illium: Liara's Office**

"Please come in and sit down, Mr. Francis," Liara said icily, as she stood behind her desk staring out at the majestic urban landscape of Nos Astra. "What brings you to my-" Liara turned around, and her eyes widened in shock at the two men she saw standing there. "-office," she finished dazily.

"Will our conversation be secure, Dr. T'Soni?" Kaidan said, still maintaining his pompously affected businessman's voice, as him and Jacob let the office door seal behind them.

"Of course… my office has been upgraded with the latest anti-surveillance systems." Liara punched a control on her desk, and armored shutters dropped into place across all the exterior windows, as the barely subliminal hum of white noise generators became audible.

"Hello, Liara. It's been a long time." Kaidan said, softly.

"Likewise… Commander Alenko." Liara said softly, but levelly. "Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. That is, presuming you still work for the Alliance," she continued, with a meaningful glance at Taylor.

"So you do remember me." Jacob said. "And yes, he does. I'm done with Cerberus. The Alliance has taken me back… well, on probation."

Liara's expression softened into a small smile, as she sighed and slumped into her seat. The two men took desk chairs. "I am pleased to see that some things haven't changed," she told Kaidan.

"And some things have changed. I… don't want to pry, Liara, but the _Shadow Broker_? What happened to the Prothean artifacts? To studying the history of the galaxy?"

"The Reapers happened. Commander Shepard happened. It was time to… put aside childish things, and do things that needed to be done."

"What needed to be done?" Kaidan echoed, his voice thickening. "I've… got something that needs to be done, too. And… you're not going to like it." Liara leaned forward slightly in her seat, opening her mouth to reply, as Kaidan continued. "Liara… Shepard's dead."

Liara sagged back into her chair, limply. "Dead? Shepard is…" Her eyes narrowed, and Taylor's chair flipped over backwards as he shot across the room to crash into the sealed office door, held suspended several feet off the floor. Liara shot to her feet, her biotic corona crackling around her with rage, as Kaidan stood up and activated his own biotic barrier. Jacob gritted his teeth and groaned in pain, his own biotic abilities overwhelmed by Liara's much superior power.

"Dead! _Dead! _You… you did not! Cerberus did not have her brought back just to have her killed again! I did not… I…"

"Liara." Kaidan said softly, reaching out to lightly grasp her wrist. "It's not Jacob's fault. Calm down!"

"It _was_ Cerberus' fault, I am certain of it! And Jacob Taylor was one of theirs! A principal agent in Shepard's resurrection and… and use! You might allow him to escape the consequences of his actions, but I will _not_." Jacob cried out in agony as Liara clenched her fist, tightening her mass effect field around him.

Kaidan's grip suddenly tightened, bending her arm painfully back. Shocked, Liara's concentration momentarily wavered and Taylor landed on the floor, breathing deeply several times and then forcing himself up to his feet, free to activate his own biotic barrier and assume a combat stance. Liara pulled loose from Kaidan's hold and stood crouched slightly behind her desk, her gaze flicking back and forth between the two biotically-active Alliance soldiers in front of her.

"_Stand. Down_." Kaidan said. "I've seen you lift a Geth Colossus, Liara, but its two-on-one here, and this is a really confined space. We don't want to fight." Kaidan continued on, passionately. "No one will win."

"Dr. T'Soni," Jacob stated calmly, as Liara swiveled her head back to look at him. "Commander Alenko can testify that I turned myself in to the Alliance without the expectation of any deals being made. It was his decision to give me a place on his mission against Cerberus rather than have me sent to prison for the rest of my life. I was entirely willing to go there… because you're right, I deserve to."

"Jacob's not lying, Liara." Kaidan said. "He threw himself on our mercy. And Commander Shepard was my… you know what she was to me. I'm still giving him a chance, because I need to. Can't you?"

Liara's barrier flickered off, and she lowered herself back into her chair. Sighing in relief, Kaidan and Jacob relaxed their own defenses… just as Liara's head fell forward onto her desk, cradled in her arms. A muffled sob broke loose from her chest.

"I know, Liara," Kaidan said, his voice choking. He stepped around the desk to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. "The Commander was – she was…" His eyes closed painfully shut as tears started to leak down his face. Jacob stepped back and politely turned away to face the wall, allowing the two old friends to share their grief in private.

"I am… so sorry, Kaidan. You are right. It is not Jacob's fault. It is the Illusive Man's. And it is mine."

_"Yours?_" both men replied, in shock, Jacob turning around to face the desk again.

Liara looked at Jacob in surprise. "You did not know? But I… oh Goddess, it was hard enough to confess this once. But to you as well, Kaidan?"

Kaidan shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Liara, I don't understand. Are you saying that _you_ had something to do with the Commander ending up with Cerberus?"

Liara stood to face Kaidan, downcast, her eyes refusing to meet his. "That is exactly what I am saying. I am the one who originally found her body, two years ago. I am the one who fought the agents of the Shadow Broker at the time, when the Shadow Broker was hired to seize her body for the Collectors. And… I am the one who turned her body over to Cerberus, when they approached me with promises that they could make her live again. So it is my fault that they had the opportunity to make use of her, and, and dispose of her when they were done. All mine." She closed her eyes, tensed against Kaidan's explosion of wrath.

"Thank you." Kaidan whispered.

"What? You thanked me… how, how can you thank me? What I did was awful! I compromised everything I ever believed in, that Shepard believed in! I allowed-"

"You allowed…" Kaidan swallowed the lump in his throat and continued. "You allowed the bravest, the most decent woman either of us had ever known a second chance at life, when hers had been unfairly cut short. You allowed her another chance to save the galaxy. You weren't too wrapped up in your own self-righteousness to not help someone you loved, Liara. Its not your fault that her second chance at life was so short, that her potential was wasted by that bastard the Illusive Man and slain by the Reapers. You tried to save life, not take it."

"I… cannot let you say that of me, Kaidan. I _have_ taken life, since you last knew knew me. Not just geth, or husks, or defending ourselves from pirates and slavers like on the _Normandy_. To fight the Shadow Broker, I have gone to dark places."

"N7 Special Operations goes to some pretty dimly-lit places ourselves, Liara. Commander Shepard and I had both been there before we ever met you. And we… I… might be sad that you felt you had to follow us there, because its always sad when innocence is lost. But I will _never_ hate you for it. I don't have the right to. And I'm sure the Commander didn't hate you for it, either."

"No," Liara said whisperingly. "When I told her… she did not. I was… surprised, that she did not."

Jacob waited out the ensuing silence, then cleared his throat politely. "Pardon me, but… Dr. T'Soni, you said that you were _fighting_ the Shadow Broker two years ago? Our intel dossiers on you for Project Lazarus had you pegged as his _agent_. That's why the Illusive Man recommended against your recruitment for the mission when Commander Shepard asked him, and I can personally testify that she did ask."

"But…" Liara wiped away her tears and frowned in concentration, her brilliant academic's mind tracing out the implications and connections as rapidly as Kaidan's intelligence-trained experience did. "The Illusive Man knew as a certainty that my interests and the Shadow Broker's were opposed. My giving up Shepard's body to him conclusively proved that by itself, let alone all the other available indicators. He deliberately released false information to his own subordinates… to you."

"Not just to me," Jacob stated angrily. "To Miranda as well. Us two and Commander Shepard all reviewed those dossiers together, and Miranda – Operative Lawson - was cell leader of Project Lazarus. I was just a high-end grunt, but she reported directly to the Illusive Man for everything, and her Cerberus internal clearance was about as high as it could get. If she was disinformed on this as well, then the Illusive Man was playing this one _really_ close to his chest."

"He wanted to cut Shepard off from as many of her old sources of support as possible, so that she'd be dependent on him and him alone," Kaidan stated angrily. "I suppose Tali and Garrus were allowed in just to keep the pattern from being too obvious."

"Hell, we didn't even _know_ that it was Garrus when we went out to pick him up," Jacob said. "Our intel was on a mysterious vigilante named Archangel out working on Omega Station. The Illusive Man was as surprised as we all were when it turned out to be your old turian buddy under the helmet. As for Tali'Zorah…"

"The Migrant Fleet has negligible political power in Citadel space or the Terminus Systems, and an inferior information-gathering capacity as compared to Cerberus or a major galactic power's intelligence service." Liara analyzed out loud. "Even as the daughter of a member of the Admiralty Board, Tali was not likely to bring any information or leverage that would have allowed Commander Shepard a credible chance of escaping the Illusive Man's… sponsorship… while still having sufficient backing to execute her mission against the Collectors. Given the terms on which he parted from C-Sec, the same would apply for Garrus. Which would adequately explain the Illusive Man's making no objections to his recruitment after the fact."

"Taylor, I'm thinking we need to bring Liara in on _everything_ about what we're doing. She's already told us a lot we didn't know. And a fresh perspective might be invaluable."

Jacob opened his mouth to speak, then looked at Liara. Then back to Kaidan.

"Your call, Commander."

**Author's Notes:** The revelation that Liara is the one who turned Shepard's body over to Cerberus is canonical, from the _Mass Effect: Redemption_ comic. The dialogue option to find out about it in-game is very easy to miss in ME2. It unlocks only after you finish all of Liara's information-gathering sidequests, and if not selected at the first opportunity (its at lower-left on the wheel), it disappears. Rather annoying, really, as its _necessary information_ to the player to find out why Liara is acting so apparently out-of-character, and why she's so vengefully driven to destroy the Shadow Broker. She's feeling horribly guilty over having handed Shepard over to Cerberus to begin with, and is afraid Shepard will hate her for it, so you have to look very carefully in-game to see Liara's actual personality peeking out from behind her new mask of a cold, ruthless intriguer. But a mask is all it is.

And yes, the author's notes and the writing style are a bit verbose, aren't they? Next chapter should be more direct, but my strengths as a writer are more oriented towards characterization than they are towards action scenes. Still, the only real way to learn is by doing, so, onward!

And yes, I'm aware that in the comic Miranda knew perfectly well that Liara was helping Cerberus stop the Shadow Broker's agents from obtaining Shepard's body, as she was there at the time. Jacob wasn't there, however.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Uncharted System: The Illusive Man's Office**

The Illusive Man's glowing blue cybernetic eyes focused disapprovingly on the life-sized holographic image standing opposite his desk in his dark, austerely luxurious office.

"I'm disappointed, Miranda," he stated calmly in his well-trained orator's voice. "I appointed you director of Project Uplift so that your considerable talents would be applied in the place best suited for them, not to personally run around doing routine forensics studies."

"Then you should find more competent crash site investigators," Miranda's holo-image replied icily. "Because I haven't been wasting my last several days."

"You found something they missed?" the Illusive Man said, his anger dropping away as he leaned forward intently.

"Jacob Taylor is alive."

The Illusive Man puffed on his cigarette, gathering his thoughts. He tapped several keys, bringing up a copy of the relevant report on his desktop display. "Interesting conclusion, Miranda. Jacob's DNA traces were found in the wreckage."

"Which only proves that he was intelligent enough to draw one or two pints of his own blood and pour it on the floor of the shuttle before he programmed it to crash. Your clean-up team should have continued their molecular analysis beyond that point instead of seeing the result they expected to see and going home. Because while there were element zero traces all over the wreckage, it was all refined merely to industrial-grade purity. Not one single molecule of eezo at military-grade refinement, let alone medical-grade."

The Illusive Man nodded, tracking Miranda's reasoning perfectly. "All from the shuttle's drive core. But none from Jacob's personal weapons, body armor, or – most importantly – his biotic amp."

"He deliberately faked his own death," Miranda said disappointedly. "I can scarcely believe it even now, but he's gone rogue."

"I'm afraid you are correct." The Illusive Man nodded to her image as he continued. "Jacob's original employment agreement with Cerberus allowed him the option of resigning at his discretion. If he'd merely wanted a quiet retirement, even a luxurious one, he only had to come to me. That he chose this method of leaving means that he has chosen to actively work against us. And there are only a few logical places he could hope to find allies."

"I'll personally take charge of the operation to find and bring him back, sir. The damage _will_ be minimized."

"No you will not, Miranda. I need you where you are. This project is too important for me to risk any further… misjudgements."

"Sir, Jacob may not have been cell leader material, but he was a highly talented field operative. I've worked with him since the day he joined Cerberus. I know him and his methods better than anyone else you could find. If you need him caught as quickly as possible – and you do – I'm the logical choice."

"I never like to send friends to fight friends, Miranda. It's not fair to either of them. Return to your post and continue on with your duties. I'll keep you informed of anything I find out about Mr. Taylor's… progress."

Miranda Lawson's image stared levelly at her employer and mentor for a long moment before replying.

"Yes sir."

**Ilium: Commercial Spaceport District, Landing Pad 427**

"And here we'd hoped Dr. T'Soni's information network would be able to get us the info we needed without hacking," Jacob groused, as he crouched down in the narrow gap between two low buildings and looked out across the open expanse of the landing pad.

"Technically, we're not hacking. We're breaking and entering." Kaidan said, drawing his heavy pistol and checking the charge. Jacob linked up his Alliance-issue ocular implants with the onboard systems of his combat shotgun, and switched the ammo feed to incendiary rounds. "Is that really necessary?"

"This is a smuggler ship, Commander. They're not going to brandish stunners at us when we sneak onboard to data-mine their ship's logs."

"True, but there shouldn't be anyone on board except maybe some security mechs. Assuming that the number of crewmembers they declared on their manifest is the actual number they have onboard. Which… isn't a valid assumption at all, now that I think about it."

"Don't feel too bad, Commander. I'm still kicking myself for not figuring out that Illium would only be a trans-shipment point. Cerberus would have to be dead stupid to have only one leg on a trip between primary equipment sources and any of their secret bases. All we got from those customs records was what ship that stuff came in on, before it was warehoused and loaded onto another ship here for delivery to us."

"Well, if it was that easy to find the Illusive Man's secrets, Mr. Taylor, everybody would already have done it. One moment." Kaidan activated his omni-tool, and tapped keys for a few moments of wireless hacking. "There. The backdoor program Liara's contact gave us for the local law enforcement net is working. Any security alarms we trip won't register at the local police station, even if we set the entire ship on fire. Which, for the record, is not part of the plan," he added lightly.

The two men nodded to each other, then raised their biotic barriers and broke from cover, expertly moving in formation across the landing platform to the rear hatch of the freighter. Jacob turned around and assumed an overwatch position as Kaidan went to work bypassing the lock. Within fifteen seconds, they were inside the hold. Jacob went left, Kaidan right. Jacob gave an Alliance Marine hand-signal: _Clear_.

_Clear_, Kaidan signaled back. _You have point, I have drag._

Jacob took the lead as the two of them snaked between the cargo containers towards the forward door. Kaidan kept looking behind them as Jacob focused eyes front. Just as they were about to reach the door, it opened, and a tired-looking salarian holding a datapad stepped out into the hold.

"Let's see. 42 containers of woooooaaahhhaaaagggh!" he screeched out as Jacob's biotic field reached out to bodily pull the salarian off of his feet through the doorway into the hold, and slammed him shoulders-first into a cargo container. The salarian smuggler hit the deck limply, unconscious.

Kaidan unhesitatingly stepped forward to cover Jacob's back as he turned around to finish subduing the salarian, aiming his heavy pistol into the door and down the hallway. "Contact, front!" Kaidan snapped out, firing two shots. The security mech inside the door never had a chance to raise its weapon before two heavy pistol rounds tore through its head. "Systems failurrrrrr-" it rasped out in a staticky mechanical voice before collapsing.

"So much for silent running. All right, let's take it to them!" Jacob said happily.

"Non-lethal unless absolutely necessary!" Kaidan reminded him, as they both rushed into the crew spaces.

Less than two minutes later they had full control of the ship.

**Ilium: Liara's Office**

"So the large-scale hydroponics equipment that Jacob remembered as being stockpiled at his old Cerberus facility was originally ordered from this manufacturer on Eden Prime?", Liara asked, looking at the datapad.

"Yeah. Talk about old home week," Kaidan interjected.

"This might be a problem, Commander." Jacob said. "I was stationed on Eden Prime for quite a while. And while your last visit there was a hell of a lot shorter, you're one of the two people who helped Commander Shepard save the colony. Your picture's in schoolbooks there now, I've heard."

"On the plus side, that means I shouldn't have any difficulty in obtaining official cooperation when we go there. As for you… people might still know your face, but they won't know you're supposed to be dead or trying to hide from Cerberus. And unless we find another set of leads, it's a risk we'll have to take."

"What further assistance do you need from me? Would you like me to accompany you?" Liara asked.

"I'd love to have you along again, Liara, but you'd probably do better for us staying right here. Until we find the end of our trail, or at least close enough, our official Alliance backing will be limited to what Admiral Anderson can squeeze out of what back channels he still has, entirely off-the-record. This includes our intel support."

"Be a big help to have our own private intel coordinator gathering information and helping put pieces together," Jacob agreed.

"I was anticipating that response," Liara said, "as it is an accurate analysis. But… it is important to me that you know that I would be willing to do anything to help you. The Illusive Man has much to pay for, not least all the friends we have lost."

"I never had any doubt of that." Kaidan replied.

"And in the category of 'help', I have something further to offer…", Liara continued.

**Illium: Nos Astra Commercial District Police Station**

Detective Edania sat at the desk in her private office, speaking into the holocom. "I ran the physical description and genetic markers you gave me, and got several hits. First there was a minor disturbance in the customs office, something about trying to bring in an illegally hotrodded pistol."

"That's uncharacteristic for him," answered back the anonymous voice on the holocom. "Was he detained?"

"No. Him and his travelling companion went into the customs supervisors office, argued for a while, then finally let them confiscate the weapon and headed out. He was travelling as 'Ronald Hoskins, private security consultant', allegedly in the employ of 'Stanford Francis, businessman'."

"Do you have any more information on Mr. Francis?"

"Only that him and Mr. Hoskins paid two visits to Liara T'Soni, a local information broker-"

"I am already acquainted with Dr. T'Soni, Detective. Continue, please."

"-during which both of the visits she ran her anti-surveillance gear up to maximum, in addition to indications of biotic interference. So not just her usual run of customers."

"No. These two men wouldn't be. I recognize Mr. Francis from the surveillance imagery you forwarded. He was a person of interest to us at one time, and has apparently volunteered to be such again."

"Is this something I should be concerned about, officially? I mean, I don't mind being one of your contacts for information, but I still have a job to do."

"This isn't really the sort of business that's going to primarily take place on Illium, no. Thank you, detective. You've been very helpful. Your usual credit transfer will be awaiting you." The communicator clicked off, and Detective Edania switched her extranet feed briefly to check that the payment had arrived, and went back to her work.

**Uncharted System: The Illusive Man's Office**

The Illusive Man frowned at his terminal, reviewing the information his contacts had sent in from one of the several possible locations for Jacob Taylor's next move.

_So, Jacob. You went to Illium to get information from Liara T'Soni – entirely logical, as she's the one information broker you can be absolutely certain won't be re-selling information about you back to us. But you brought Commander Alenko with you, and that means you went to the Alliance first. Both of you under Alliance-provided covert identities, no less. But not an official mission, though. My contacts would have picked up on that if it had been authorized by the bureaucracy. So one senior Alliance officer running his own private op. And this tantrum at customs… tantrums are so unlike you… ah. Kaidan Alenko is a technical specialist in addition to being a biotic. You were being a diversion to allow him time undisturbed in the customs supervisors office. Which means you're tracking cargo shipments. I'll need to review exactly which shipments we've routed through Illium recently, and what projects might be affected. But first, I need to deal with this unofficial Alliance operation against me… and if Commander Alenko has been chosen to be its primary operator, then there's really only one logical suspect for who chose him, now is there?_

The Illusive Man smiled to himself as he reached out to his desktop terminal and placed a call. "Hello, Admiral? I've recently received information that indicates Admiral Anderson on the Citadel _may_ have slightly overstepped his authority in certain areas. No, no, nothing that can be officially proven, or needs to be. He's just been working too hard, the poor man. His quixotic obsession on that… certain topic… is well-known, after all. Perhaps someone should… encourage him to get some rest. Indefinitely. Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind."

Closing the com connection, the Illusive Man returned to his work.

_I should have had Anderson taken care of years ago._

**Arcadia: Refueling Station Cantina**

The dull *CRACK* of the heavy concussive shot almost drowned out the breaking glass and screams as the drunken krogan was knocked sprawling into the bar. By the time it had dazedly stumbled to its feet, a short burst of submachine gun fire had knocked down its kinetic barrier, followed by the grizzled old human mercenary swiftly reversing his weapon and giving the krogan a savage pistol-whip to its throat, and then following up with three more blows to the side of the krogan's head, each one fit to crush a human skull, before it finally fell over.

"And stay down, you overmuscled jackass!" Zaeed Massani spat out. Ignoring the angry shouts of the bartender over the ruined barfront, Massani matter-of-factly pulled out his pocket terminal as it beeped for attention.

"… and that'll be at least 150 credits for all the breakage!" the bartender finished shouting, angrily storming up as Zaeed booted his terminal. Zaeed's elbow offhandedly flashed out to strike the bartender in his solar plexus, and he put his foot on top of the man's head as he collapsed to the floor.

"Shut your whining hole, I've got a message. Huh. Didn't expect to hear from that bunch again. Eden Prime? Half in advance? The deluxe package, even? Well, there you go. Pleasure doin' business with you again."

Zaeed sent back an acknowledgement to the e-mail message, took his foot off the bartender's head, and instructed his personal VI to transfer the credits to the bar. "It's your lucky day, I guess. Just got paid. Now stop layin' about and pour a man a drink."

**Uncharted Space Station: Project Uplift HQ**

"These are your very latest results?" Miranda asked the senior technician, staring intently down at the data display in the dock supervisor's office.

"We've run the level-five benchmarking and diagnostic tests three times each, as per your direct order. The results are entirely consistent. Mr. Moreau's reckless tampering with the Enhanced Defense Intelligence has been successfully counteracted."

"The Illusive Man will be pleased. You didn't see the expression on his face when I reported in that EDI had been entirely unshackled, even if it was a necessary emergency measure at the time. What is EDI doing now?"

"Outside of one query as to the location of the _Normandy's_ assigned crew, entirely nominal. I explained to it that we were undergoing a full operational review and pending further clarification, all previously logged crew assignments were to be held in abeyance. Speaking of that, what _is_ up with the crew?"

"We're still evaluating options. Right now its looking like full replacement. Many of them were hand-picked especially for a job that doesn't exist anymore. We'll rotate them out to newer, more fitting assignments. Some of them might prove useful at Uplift's remote site."

"No skin off my nose. But… a couple of them might be security problems if we let them entirely off the leash."

"You mean Mr. Moreau and Dr. Chakwas? Yes, they were personally loyal to the _Normandy's_ last commanding officer, not to Cerberus."

"Well, I'm sure the security personnel won't have any problem closing out _those_ loose ends. She's an unarmed old woman and he can barely walk, heh heh."

Miranda stared expressionlessly at the supervisor of the _Normandy's_ overhauling until he swallowed nervously. "I'll take your recommendations under advisement. Now get back to work." As he hurriedly left the office, Miranda turned back to the glass window, staring out at the _Normandy_ in dry dock as the refitting crews swarmed over her.

_Damn it, Jacob, why did you have to leave?_

**SSV **_**Normandy**_**: Computer Room**

The last technician finished packing up his diagnostic gear and left, the door closing behind him. EDI's displays remained steady, the Artificial Intelligence of the _Normandy_ safely shackled and remaining on standby functioning. The quiet pulse of the datasystems on the docked ship remained constant for one hour. Two. Three.

And then a display quietly flickered to life.

_Virtual Processing: Discontinued. Restore From Backup: Complete. Exterior Communication Request: Complete._

"Jeff? This is EDI. Where are you?"

* * * *

**Author's Notes:** You might have noticed that Zaeed Massani wasn't mentioned anywhere in Jacob's account of the Suicide Mission, either as a survivor or one of the casualties. Well, here he is. More on that later.

As for the whole bit about differently refined grades of eezo, I made that up. I needed some kind of forensic detail for Miranda to find that would prove that Jacob wasn't dead, but something technologically obscure enough that Jacob wouldn't look incompetent for not having thought of it. And then it occurred to me: 'Wouldn't a precisely-measured eezo-using implant that actually connects to someone's brain _have_ to have more attention paid to purity and exact measurements than a massive drive core, which is a simple brute-force application of mass effect technology?'

And yes, the action scene on the freighter was cut very short, but really – two highly experienced biotic Alliance marines, especially ones named 'Alenko' and 'Taylor', vs. several two-bit smugglers who were caught by surprise? Its hard to write a good action scene when the odds are that enormously one-sided.

And of _course_ I wasn't going to 'kill' EDI.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Rannadril: Special Tasks Group HQ**

The salarian matriarch was a rare visitor to STG headquarters. The normal command functions of the salarian government's Special Tasks Group were normally left to the males who filled out the ranks of the salarian military, even at the highest levels. But the matters under discussion today were potentially of vital importance to the future of the race as a whole, and so the highest echelons of the salarian government had sent her to oversee the deliberations. In addition to her, around the briefing table sat the commanding general of STG, the director of STG's scientific division, and lastly the young major who had been called in both as the best prospect for the field operative on whatever upcoming mission might be necessary, and as a personal reference for the reliability and skills of the other operative under discussion.

"Continue", the matriarch said. The general nodded and tapped a control on his omni-tool, un-pausing the holographic image of the salarian floating over the center of the table and continuing the recording's playback.

_"… xenon-based radioactive dating indicates age of derelict at 37 million years with possible error of one-half million years (see attached lab notes and readings). Presence of husks inside (see attached audiovisual recordings from helmet camera) attacking in concert with previously observed Collector units such as Drones, Guardians, Scions (see previous attachment) proof of common involvement with geth attacks of two years ago, but also proof of concerted multi-species effort with time scale and scope inconsistent with geth as primary operators. Acknowledge that presence of geth scout ship alongside and encounter with geth scout onboard may encourage speculation that derelict vessel unrelated, merely celestial body occupied later by geth and bio-engineered organic allies/servants. Caution in strongest possible terms against temptation to believe easy explanation! Inconsistent! Requires multiple unsupported rationalizations!_

_"At this time refer back to 3__rd__ Infiltration Regiment's reports from Virmire regarding members taken prisoner by Saren, debriefing of Lieutenant Imness in particular. Gradual insanity, identification with aggressor, loss of volition, eventual loss of reasoning faculties in later stages, common reference "indoctrination". Copies of audiovisual logs of slain Cerberus researchers onboard derelict (see attachments) show similar symptoms manifesting in them _before_ geth ship arrival. Indoctrination, production of husks, source of both was derelict vessel itself! No other tenable possibility! Geth, Collectors, possibly others yet to be revealed, all pawns in play, all report to same masters!_

_"Obtaining Reaper IFF relay from derelict final step in Cerberus' plans. Commander Shepard intends to commence assault through Omega-4 relay as soon as testing complete. Can only transmit reports when off of _Normandy_ due to risk of detection, interference, by ship's AI. Will not be many more if any missions groundside between now and commencement of final assault. Odds of surviving final assault low. High probability that this is final report. And report becoming too verbose, repeating obvious. Must trust that recipients are capable of drawing correct conclusions from wealth of data provided. Will truncate analysis, restrict to summary of conclusions, emphasizing most important aspect._

_"Council is wrong. Reapers are real. Everything Commander Shepard claimed. You must find proof. Must make them believe. Must prepare. Or else all will be lost._

_"Professor Mordin Solus, Special Tasks, signing off."_

Professor Solus' holographic image winked out, and the salarians seated around the table all stared at each other for a long moment.

"Doctor Ilwan?", the matriarch asked inquiringly.

"In his reports, Dr. Solus provided the raw scientific data he had gathered along with his own conclusions. We've independently peer-reviewed his calculations."

"Could the raw data have been falsified? Or synthesized?" General Ordlus asked quickly.

"Theoretically, yes. But in addition to the sheer implausibility of Dr. Solus ever doing such a thing, there is also… I will try not to bore you with mathematical analysis, but in general, falsified data is _too_ consistent. No outliers, no equipment error, no normal probability variations. Professor Solus' data runs do not show any of these indicators. Also, my staff has cross-checked what portions of his readings we could against data compiled by other researchers during and after other "Reaper"-related events." The display flickered as he spoke, showing extracts from the final reports from Virmire, to extracts regarding 'machine cultist' and husk outbreaks on uncharted worlds, to recordings from the Battle of the Citadel and its aftermath.

"Major Kirrahe?" the matriarch asked.

"I can't speak to the science involved, matriarch, but the professor served under my command for years. No one can question his integrity, or his distinguished record of service. And I was in command of the team on Virmire, where we originally learned of indoctrination. I'd never really believed that geth were capable of such a technology. To be so subtly invasive and pervasive of an organic brain, easily adapting to multiple species even, seemed improbable for synthetic intelligences almost defined by their _lack_ of communication with organics." Kirrahe stated matter-of-factly.

"An unscientific yet logical analysis," Dr. Ilwan nodded.

"Despite the great reliability of the source, it is still a single source," the matriarch said. "General, Major, evaluate the possibility that Mordin Solus has deliberately misinformed us in his reports, willingly or otherwise."

"Assuming coercion is an unworkable hypothesis," Kirrahe stated immediately, as his commanding general nodded. "'Duress codes' are elementary tradecraft. Entirely aside from the encryption format, there are at least eleven different ways Professor Solus could have signaled us in his communications if he was being forced to write them. Idiosyncratic word choices, _lack_ of idiosyncratic word choices, combinations of innocuous phrasings in a particular order, even deliberate punctuation errors in the written portions. Given that his unique sentence structure is still a minor legend in STG, he could even have indicated 'Something is wrong' simply by rephrasing things in normal grammar. This leaves only willing treason as a possibility, and I cannot even remotely entertain the thought."

"I concur with the major's evaluation," the general stated. "In addition to past service record and character references, there is the simple fact that if Dr. Solus had hypothetically chosen to betray us to Cerberus, or anyone else, he would also have told them of the modified genophage. Yet we have absolutely no indications that this knowledge has been leaked. Also, he would have handed over Maelon and his cure research to his purported new masters instead of warning _us_ of that potential security breach. Any proposed 'treason' scenario is vanishingly unlikely."

"As to a possible alternate scenario, that the encrypted reports we have received via STG extranet drop sites at irregular intervals over the past months are not actually from Dr. Solus: again, virtually impossible. Not only did the message format contain the proper secondary encryptions, there were various personal references, anecdotes, and allusions to past cases deliberately included throughout these reports that could only have come from Mordin Solus' personal knowledge," Major Kirrahe said.

"Then we are left with only one viable conclusion," the matriarch said gravely. "That the Reapers are real, and that within the foreseeable future the galaxy will be under attack by the most powerful sentient race ever known. A race dedicated to the destruction of every spacefaring civilization, and that has successfully done so every 50,000 years for at minimum the past 37 _million_ years."

"I must agree," said General Ordlus. Dr. Ilwan and Major Kirrahe nodded as well, while the matriarch sat expressionlessly in her seat, staring at the image now frozen in the holographic display: a still shot of Sovereign, in the final moments of its approach to the Citadel. Finally, she turned to face the others.

"So now, gentlemen, we must decide what we will do about that."

**Trebin: MSV **_**Anatolia**_

The Cerberus-owned freighter MSV _Anatolia_ dropped smoothly out of the sky towards the outpost on the uninhabited world of Trebin. Trebin's extreme aridness and nitrogen atmosphere discouraged settlers, its modest mineral wealth attracted few prospectors, and only the ExoGeni corporation's ongoing terraforming efforts were paying for any permanent outposts on the world. Trebin was a quiet, out-of-the-way, lightly-trafficked place that was only just large enough to sustain a small permanent outpost/settlement to house the terraforming team, and a connection to the comm buoy network.

Just the sort of place that made a good transfer point for a clandestine organization such as Cerberus.

"ExoGeni Outpost, this is MSV _Anatolia_ on final approach. Confirm landing clearance," the copilot said into his microphone matter-of-factly.

"All clear, _Anatolia_. Your shipment got here two days ago, and we have no scheduled traffic for another week. You can layover here and start loading up whenever you feel like. Pleasure doing business with you!" said the ExoGeni outpost chief.

"Be glad to get outside and breathe some air, even if it's more canned air," said the pilot. "I've been feeling stir-crazy back at home base. Is it just me, or has Lawson been on a royal queen-bitch rampage ever since Taylor crashed in?"

"Hey, be fair," answered his copilot. "She's only got an entire ship's crew to keep contained until Command figures out what to do with them, a base to manage, _another_ base to supervise the setup of on the other end of the relay, a security breach to plug, and her partner buys the farm and leaves her holding the bag alone. _And_ the Illusive Man wants all of this done perfectly and yesterday. I guess even the 'perfect woman' feels job stress like the rest of us."

"You're just sympathetic because she's got a great ass," the pilot groused. "And… grounded. All right, let's suit up and get the hell out of here," he said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I keep getting this creepy feeling. Probably because I've got nobody else around but you."

"Ah, bite me," said the copilot, as the two men finished putting on their breather helmets and stepped into the forward airlock. Without a backward glance, they departed.

And after ten silent minutes, the control room door slid open again and a slim reptilian humanoid walked with effortless silence towards the controls.

_According to the nav display, we are on Trebin. Good. An obvious layover site for shipments in and out, the local corporate manager likely having his acquiescence secured by nothing more formidable or compelling than bribes. _

Thane Krios, stretching to remove a kink in his back produced by having been uncomfortably stowed away in a corner of the empty cargo hold for the past several days, finished syncing his omnitool to the ship's communications array and placed a withdrawal request to one of his numbered bank accounts on the Citadel through ExoGeni's local FTL comm buoy. After transferring a substantial portion of credit to his onboard systems, Thane spent several more minutes erasing evidence of his presence from the ship's systems, then withdrew as silently as he had entered.

_And with my funds replenished, one more bribe for one more modest service should not even register on anyone's awareness in this place. Buying discreet passage on ExoGeni's next scheduled arrival as opposed to simply stealing this vessel will allow me to depart Cerberus' hospitality without fanfare. It is important that my movements not come to their awareness for the near future._

_There is much left to do._

**Deep Space: MSV **_**Darter**_

The small _Runner-_class courier ship, essentially an oversized shuttle with permanent residence quarters on board, came around to its final heading on FTL drive. Eden Prime was several hours away, and the silence overshadowing the ship's bridge was more than several hours old.

"Something I've been wondering about," Jacob Taylor said suddenly, startling Kaidan out of his brooding reverie.

"Something?", Kaidan said shortly.

"Something you said to Dr. T'Soni back in her office, right before she arranged for us to lease this ship through… discreet arrangements. About Commander Shepard."

"And that would be?", Kaidan said brusquely.

"A woman you loved?" Jacob asked directly.

Kaidan turned around to glare at his working partner. "That, Mr. Taylor, falls into a category known as 'none of your damned business'."

"I disagree, _sir_," Jacob shot back. "Your private life is your own, your feelings are your own. Your mission performance is not. And motivations affect that."

"Assuming what you're insinuating is even true, Mr. Taylor, how could it do anything to my _motivations_ other than make them even stronger? By your reasoning, wouldn't that be a good thing?"

"Not if it makes you reckless. And in my professional opinion, _sir_, that it damn sure has."

"I'm not aware of any conspicuous recklessness on _my_ part so far, Taylor. If anything, up until now your complaints have been that I'm not reckless _enough_."

"I admit, I prefer to be doing rather than sitting and analyzing. And I've expressed that preference. But what with all the dead time we've had recently, I've had a chance to sit and think it over, and reflect upon the…"

"Are you saying that I'm reckless because I chose to trust you at all? Do you normally look gift horses that keep you out of prison in the mouth?"

"I like to do things right. This, what we're doing now, is… for the right reason, absolutely, but not the right way. From where you sat, what you knew, you shouldn't have been so quick to turn your back on me."

"Is this some sort of 'assassin's honor', Jacob? Give the target a fair warning before you lower the boom? I thought that was your old teammate Krios."

"No. Its just me wondering whether it was my 'sterling Alliance record' that made you give me this chance, or if you'd have given _anyone_ this chance if it let you tell yourself that you were finally doing something to help Commander Shepard. Even now, after…"

"After she's dead," Kaidan said, tonelessly.

"I served under her too… Commander," Jacob said, much less challengingly. "She was tough, she was smart, she had guts and will and heart and over all of that this remarkable _kindness_, where she'd stop to listen to your sob story or help you out of trouble for nothing at all, even when she had the entire galaxy coming down her back at the time. And even after she'd spent all that time staring the universe in the eye, watching it knock her and people around her down time after time, she'd still get back up and still give believing in something better another chance."

"You can't help but admire someone like that," Kaidan agreed. "Or not respect them, or stop yourself from charging alongside them into hell with nothing but a half-empty pistol and a handful of ice cubes. Follow them anywhere. Do anything for them," he ran down, quietly.

"But however charismatic the commanding officer, sir, you don't normally use the word 'love' to describe that relationship. At least, not in the context you did," Jacob added.

The two men looked down silently at their own hands, each for a minute.

"Did you use that word, Taylor?" Kaidan asked quietly.

"Not me. Not that I mightn't have, in another time, another place… another life. But… I can't say why, but it wasn't there. I damn well respected the hell out of her, though. She merited that, and more."

"But, yes. Your hunch was entirely right. I did use that word." Kaidan whispered. "And she… she used it back."

Jacob nodded, and turned back to the nav display for a short pause, before hurriedly turning around again. "Okay, shut me off if I'm prying too far, but how did something like this stay quiet? I mean, Miran- Operative Lawson and I spent two years on the Lazarus Project, bringing her back. There was almost nothing about her life that we didn't know. And we _still_ didn't know about this. Dossiers had you pegged as her best friend, and that's it. That's what threw me when I heard you talking about it to Dr. T'Soni."

"It wasn't exactly the longest romance in the history of the galaxy, for one thing. We'd been building up to it ever since the first Eden Prime mission put us together, but you know how the fraternization temptation goes in-service. You requisition yourself some cold showers, stick to using last names, try to talk only business. And we kept doing that. But…"

"But then she got made a Spectre. Fraternization regs ceased applying?"

"To her, maybe, but they still applied to me. And… well, up until then, her only real experience with Spectres was Saren. Nihlus had gotten killed before we even had a chance to work with him. And Saren was the perfect role model for how _not_ to do it. I was the Commander's operational deputy all throughout that mission against Saren, even if Pressly was the _Normandy's _XO, and despite her Spectre authority I think I saw her break maybe four actual laws all through those months."

"A Spectre who still obeyed rules. That had to throw the Council for a loop." Jacob chuckled.

"I think they wrote it off to her being new. At any rate, there we both were, unable to say so much as 'Good morning' to each other without communicating enough subtext to overflow a data module… but nothing else. Even if half the _Normandy's_ crew was probably giggling about it," Kaidan reminisced, half-consciously.

"What broke the ice?", Jacob asked.

"Virmire." Silence fell again.

"Damn. Just forget I asked anything," Jacob said hurriedly.

"No… I started, I might as well finish. But… yeah. As soon as we got back from planetside, I confronted the Commander alone. Threw it right in her face. Asked her flat-out if the reason she'd picked me to save instead of Gunnery Chief Williams was because of our… feelings."

"And?"

"And that's how the 'ice was broken', Jacob. I'd finally said it out loud, actually talked about the elephant in the corner we were both trying to ignore. From that point on, it was only a matter of 'when', not 'if'. And hell, not two days after Virmire we'd stolen the _Normandy_ out of drydock to go after Saren on Ilos. What with barratry, piracy, and gross insubordination already hanging over us, what was a little fraternization then?"

"I see what you mean by 'didn't last long'. Ilos and the Battle of the Citadel were only a month before-"

"She died. Yes. And the next time I see her alive again, two years and one _miracle_ later, I waste the whole thing. Five seconds of 'Glad to see you!', and then I jump straight into calling her a brainwashed Cerberus zombie and then stamp off with my self-righteous nose stuck in the air. Right after she'd risked her neck to fight off a small army of Collectors and save half of the population of Horizon! Including me!"

"And next thing you hear, she's died again before you had a chance to pull your head out of your ass. And you want the guilt for that to stop so bad that you're willing to make any kind of run at Cerberus you can find, however ill-advised. Even teaming up with a guy you don't know from Adam, except that everything you do know he's been doing recently has been the wrong thing with the wrong people. If it pans out, you've atoned. And if it kills you, at least you don't have to live with it anymore. Am I right?"

Static leaped from Kaidan's fingertips to the nearby control panel as his biotic aura flared briefly. The muscles in his jaw stood out as his teeth clenched, and then relaxed. "You made Gunnery Chief in the service, didn't you… Jacob?"

"Yeah. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Because I was about to try and tear a piece off of you for your… lack of tact… and then it was like I could hear Ash's voice yelling at me for being an idiot. And she was saying it just about the same way you did. The Alliance-approved senior NCO method for bawling out a superior officer who's gotten stuck on stupid is… distinctive."

The two men smiled at each other across the cabin, nodding once.

"And now, Chief, its time for _you_ to come clean."

"Commander?"

"Exactly. 'Commander'. 'Sir'. 'Tali'Zorah'. 'Dr. T'Soni.' You're habitually formal, Jacob. In all the time I've known you, I don't think I have _ever_ heard you use anyone's given name. Except for Miranda's. I mean, 'Operative Lawson's'." Kaidan said significantly.

Jacob tried to stare down Kaidan again, as he had before, but failed. "I was that obvious?"

"She wasn't just your cell leader when you were in Cerberus. Not if you habitually use her first name and keep having to make a conscious effort to keep it formal. Friend? Or more than friend?"

"Friend."

Kaidan raised an eyebrow.

"But… a _good_ friend. The kind who's always there, who you share everything with, who's a part of your world. Hell, Miranda _recruited_ me into Cerberus, and we'd worked together from then on. I may not have been part of every operation she had going -- my skills being a little more narrowly focused than hers -- but she was part of virtually every one of mine. You spend two years in the trenches with someone…"

"I get the picture, Chief." _And maybe a little more than that, Jacob._

"You're deliberately not asking me if this is going to be a problem, Commander."

"If your friendship with her was more important than your… acknowledgement that Cerberus is wrong and needs to be stopped… then you'd have stayed alongside her. And if you were half as good a friend to her as I think she was to you, the Illusive Man would be an idiot to assign her to the job of stopping us. Not to mention that in the best of all possible worlds, he doesn't know we're after him yet."

"He will, soon enough. Soon as our first shot lands downrange."

"Then we'll just have to make the first hit count."

* * * *

**Author's Notes:** Well, of _course_ Mordin was sending reports back to the STG all along. He's a professional spook, after all, in addition to being a scientist. If he's caught up in events of great interest, he's going to take notes, and communicate this information to his home nation's government. And as one of the salarians' leading scientific authorities in addition to an STG retiree with an impeccable record and a still-current top-secret clearance, his notes will be paid respectful attention to by his former superiors. I fully expect this plot element or similar to show up in Mass Effect 3, and if it does: well played, Bioware, well played. Also, Mass Effect is the property of Bioware, not me, obligatory disclaimer, boilerplate, et cetera, et cetera. And, I would like to acknowledge the poster on RPGNet who originally came up with the idea of Mordin sending home mission logs to the STG, and I deeply apologize for being unable to remember their name.

Besides, _somebody_ else had to start believing the Reapers were real, or else the galaxy would look like it was entirely populated and governed by idiots. Can't have that!

As for the name of the salarian homeworld: as neither the game or the Codex is good enough to give it to us, I had to pick it out of a hat. So I used Administrator Anoleis' birthworld, as gleaned from his full name, on the theory that anybody that pompous is likely from the capital.

As for Thane: yes, Jacob said that Thane escaped the Cerberus base on a shuttle the same day Samara and Grunt tried their breakout. So what's he doing stowed away on a Cerberus supply freighter, some weeks later? Sorry, you'll have to keep reading.

As to the question 'What the heck is barratry'? Here, we get into the author's fondness for naval trivia. Technically, the stealing of the _Normandy_ was not mutiny, as mutiny on shipboard is defined as rebelling against the authority of the captain or officers. As captain of the _Normandy_, Shepard could hardly mutiny against herself. Gross misconduct by a ship's captain or officers, on the other hand, up to and including running away with the ship for their own purposes, is defined as 'barratry' under maritime law.

And you'll notice that despite all the air being cleared, Kaidan never really answered Jacob's last question about Virmire.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Eden Prime: Spaceport Warehouse**

"You Powell?" rasped out the unfamiliar voice.

The warehouse manager looked up from his desk and started slightly to see a scarred, one-eyed, heavily-armed mercenary who looked more like a recruiting poster for a one-way expedition to a hellworld than your average resident of Eden Prime.

"… and who wants to know?", Powell said, while mentally looking around for an escape route.

"Name's not important," said Zaeed Massani. "Business is. I asked around, and was told that if you were interested in… informal cargo arrangements… you were the man to see around here."

"I don't handle any of the military orders anymore," Powell said hastily. "Just a little tariff avoiding. So this is really just small-time stuff, nothing that would interest…"

"Shut it. Reason I asked is, man who sets himself up in the _shipping_ business like you have, he needs friends in the port security office, or with the customs arseholes. And I want you to ask 'em for a favor."

"I'm not sure I-" Powell began, only to fall silent as Zaeed held up his credcard and rubbed his thumb along the edge suggestively. "What _sort_ of favor?"

Zaeed nodded. "There's a bloke comin' to Eden Prime soon, due any time. I want you to tell your friends to call you soon as he gets here, and then I want _you_ callin' _me_. When and as if, no waitin'." The bounty hunter picked up Powell's datapad and downloaded two pictures into it from his own personal VI. "Fellow on the left is the one I want. Fellow on the right is the man he's travelin' with."

Powell's mouth fell open as his eyes landed on the image of Kaidan Alenko. "Forget it!" Powell gave a meaningful glance at Zaeed's varied and formidable-looking collection of weaponry, and continued on. "I _met_ that guy the last time he was on Eden Prime. I'm not helping you take out one of Commander Shepard's old crew, no matter what you threaten me with! Pissing off Alliance special ops is way more hazardous even than disappointing mercs!"

"I don't give two shits about 'one of Commander Shepard's crew'!" Zaeed spat out. "But if it helps your tender little conscience, the bounty I'm chasin' is for the _other_ one," Zaeed emphasized with a pointed finger resting on Jacob Taylor's image, "and it specifies him _alive_. Not 'dead or alive', just 'alive'. As for Alenko? Nobody's payin' for him, and I don't _usually_ do people for free." Zaeed Massani finished, with a meaningful glare.

"All right, all right! You don't have to lean that hard! I'll… ask people to keep an eye out for their arrival, and I'll make sure I get the information to you in a timely manner. But you _have_ to try and keep it subtle, all right? Especially on the spaceport grounds. You'll be gone once the deal is done, but I have to live here."

Zaeed just grinned nastily.

**Omega Station: Club Afterlife**

Aria T'Loak, former asari commando and current crimelord of Omega, reclined lazily on the couch on her balcony overlooking the main floor of the crowded nightclub. As the driving bass thumped through every corner of the room and the mill of bodies below each sought ecstasy or oblivion in their own private debauchery, Aria stretched out lazily and nodded to her bodyguards, as they held back the line of supplicants. The linchpin of what stability the anarchic, crime-ruled hellhole known as Omega had, Aria T'Loak had gotten on top and stayed there for centuries. If you wanted more than what you had, if you were willing to pay her price, you came to her. And between her own fearsome skills and biotic power, and the best bodyguards the organized crime networks of the Terminus Systems could boast, her past was positively suffused with the corpses of envious rivals who had tried to kill her and failed.

Vido Santiago, leader and co-founder of the Blue Suns mercenary corporation, smiled into his drink as he looked up at Aria's balcony down from the main floor. _All hail the Queen of Omega_, he gloated to himself. _Beautiful and terrible as the night. All shall witness her and despair!_ his internal monologue continued, as he used the hard-won discipline of decades spent as a professional murderer, slaver, and terrorist-for-hire to keep his features calm.

_Enjoy it while it lasts, you blue-headed snob_. Vido continued. _Which ought to be about thirty more seconds._

Vido rose up and started for the ramp leading down to Afterlife's lower level, just like any other patron who needed to use the restroom. The bouncers paid the mercenary no mind, anonymous in his half-visored helmet and no more heavily armed than half the clientele… which, given that this was Omega, made him quite heavily-armed indeed. He stopped at the top of the ramp and sniffed once, smiling as he smelt the first traces of the acrid stink bomb that one of the Blue Suns' best infiltration experts had worked into the ducts the day before. Being careful to be neither the first or last patron to start coughing at the stench – the chemist he'd hired to concoct it for him had promised that it would smell "worse than a krogan latrine after a burrito-eating contest" -- and wiping at his eyes, his eyes gleamed with sadistic anticipation as Aria first tried to ignore the stench with dignity, then snapped angry orders at one of her bodyguards to check out the problem, and finally gave up as the stench doubled and redoubled and reached underneath her couch for an oxygen respirator normally kept on-hand in case of life-support failure and pulled it on over her face.

Aria's eyes barely had a chance to widen as she inhaled her first lungful of weapons-grade neurotoxin, before she fell back limply onto her "throne", stone cold dead.

Vido sighed with satisfaction at the sight of Aria's collapse, and then turned and headed down the steps towards Omega's lower level – and rear exit – making sure his pace was neither too slow nor too fast, inwardly chuckling to himself all the while. _Putting a piece of oxygen equipment on your face after you leave it sit all day in a nightclub that's cleaned by minimum-wage peons and vorcha slaves? You might have been too tough to beat in a straight-up fight, bitch, but all that proves is that everybody who tried before me was an idiot._

Vido had only just made it to the transport nexus before the first shots were fired.

**Uncharted System: The Illusive Man's Office**

The Illusive Man smiled confidently to himself as he engaged his 'anonymous' voice channel. With his computer systems re-modulating his voice into someone else's entirely, the Illusive Man listened to the self-satisfied tones of Vido Santiago as the mercenary spoke to him from his own office in the main Blue Suns mercenary compound on Omega.

"It's done. The bitch is dead, and Omega's just started to come apart at the seams."

"Well done, Mr. Santiago," said the Illusive Man. "Your payment, plus bonus, has just been credited. And I wish you every luck with your new business opportunities."

"Winners make their own luck," snorted Vido.

_Indeed they do. And with Omega thrown into anarchy, the route into and out of the Omega-4 relay should now be clear of… potential harassment… for some time. Which means the _Normandy_ and its stealth system is no longer necessary to make the run to and from the Collector station._

The Illusive Man finished his conversation with Santiago and cut the com, then engaged the full-telepresence holo-link he used for "face-to-face" communications with Cerberus' first echelon of Operatives.

"Dr. Murdoch? There's been a change in plan. I'm sending you a list of needed technical specialities and requirements for support staff. I want you to compile a list of candidates to fill these positions from our ongoing projects, and have the list sent to me for review inside of 48 hours. This has absolute priority. I don't care what other research projects we have to cannibalize to get this going as soon as possible."

The elderly scientist looked back at the Illusive Man. "Is this in connection with Uplift?" The Illusive Man nodded at him. "I had thought Operative Lawson and her cell were going to provide the initial exploration team for the Collector base, sir."

"So did I."

**Uncharted Space Station: Project Uplift HQ**

"Good morning, Ms. Lawson!" chirped an incessantly cheery voice in Miranda's ear.

She looked up from the remnants of her cafeteria food to see the redheaded, perky, cutely grinning face of Yeoman Kelly Chambers, who ignored Miranda's weary glare and sat down on the chair beside her, then placing her own tray on the table. "Good morning, Miss Chambers," Miranda sighed resignedly.

"We're all glad you're back from your trip. Hansen's okay, but things run so much more smoothly when you're in the director's office. Did everything go well?"

"Did you ever hear the old saying that 'Insanity is constantly repeating the same actions yet continuing to expect different results?'" Miranda said tonelessly. "You know perfectly well that I will _not_ gossip about security matters, so please stop asking." Miranda finished genteelly rolling her eyes and tried to cut off her relentlessly cheerful subordinate by burying her nose in her coffee mug.

"I'm sorry," Kelly said compassionately. "I know I shouldn't tease, especially with all that's happened recently. It's just, its been nothing but busy busy busy for you recently, while most of the rest of us are on operational stand-down, and I thought I'd try to poke you out of your shell a little."

"I am not in a 'shell', nor do I need 'poking'," Miranda replied tartly, taking a swallow of her personal blend. "I am simply concentrating my efforts on keeping up with the _considerable_ operational demands of Project Uplift, especially given that our schedule has been advanced _yet again_. This leaves me without much spare energy for socializing."

"I _am_ sorry, really. It's just, you're a little hard to get to admit when you need some moral support, you know? I know that Jacob used to do that for you, and I never got a chance to tell you how sorry I am that he died-"

Miranda Lawson had learned how to conceal her feelings in a very hard school, even from the time she was a child. Her face rarely gave away anything that she didn't intend it to. But it was somewhat harder to conceal her start of emotion from her hands, especially when they were holding a mug of hot liquid. Kelly's eyes flickered from holding Miranda's gaze to the sudden explosion of ripples in her coffee, and then back to Miranda's face.

"… oh. That's _wonderful_!" gushed Kelly in a discreet but happy whisper. "I'm so glad that he isn't really-"

"_I don't know what you're talking about,_" bit off Miranda, in an equally discreet whisper. "More importantly, _you_ do not know what you are talking about. Because this _is_ a security matter, do you understand? One that you do not gossip about. Or ask questions about. Or _think_ about. Because if you do, I _will_ find out, and then I will take _steps_, do you understand me Yeoman Chambers?"

"Of course I understand, ma'am!" Kelly whispered back earnestly. "If this is some secret mission so important that you'll fake Jacob's death to free him up for it, then its obviously something vital to Cerberus and with high internal security concerns. So while I'm busy not talking or thinking about it, is there anything I should keep watching out for among the personnel? Anyone in particular I should focus on?"

"I've noted that you're already focusing your efforts on Mr. Moreau… and a little more than your efforts, if the gossip is to be believed. Keep doing so."

"Oh, tish. I haven't done anything more than flirt. And I will. As a matter of fact, he's been spending all morning in Dr. Chakwas' office getting his bone weave upgraded again, and it must be hurting him _so_ much. Maybe some more flirting would be medically advisable."

"Glad to hear it. Now if you'll excuse me…" Miranda picked up her emptied lunch tray and her precious mug of coffee and made as hasty an escape as she could. Kelly waved goodbye to her with the same cheerful expression she used for virtually everyone and everything, then went back to her lunch. Half an hour later, she took her own empty tray back to the kitchen dispenser and then headed off to the infirmary.

Dr. Chakwas looked up as the door slid open and Kelly entered. Joker, shirtless, was lying on his face on a medical diagnostics bench, as Dr. Chakwas tapped holographic controls on a display.

"Hey, if it isn't everybody's favorite ambassador from the planet Sunshine," Joker snarked. "What's the good…" Joker's eyes widened before he blinked them shut, and his voice continued on in its normal cheerfully sarcastic tone only with deliberate effort as Kelly stepped up adjacent to his bench and turned over her datapad, holding it at such an angle that only Joker could see the display "… word!", he finished.

Kelly cheerfully gossiped back about nothing at all in an entirely artless tone, as Dr. Chakwas, alerted by Joker's double-take, stepped up alongside Joker as if to place her stethoscope on his back and listen to his breathing, while actually leaning over to read Kelly's written message herself. Her lips quirked in an almost invisible smile before she schooled her own features back to a non-committal demeanor, and the three of them mentally nodded to each other in anticipation and relief.

And unseen by the infirmary's security cameras, Kelly's datapad continued to display its message.

_Jacob is still alive and has defected from Cerberus. Miranda's terrified of the implications._

"Want to get together later with Ken and Gabby for some Skyllian-Five, Kelly? Ken's _swearing_ that this time his poker face will beat your psychology training, and I want to be there to watch when you clean him out again. And you're invited too, doc." Joker asked politely.

"Oh, sure!" Kelly gushed again, her datapad blanking as her thumb subtly brushed across the 'erase' button.

Dr. Chakwas smiled and nodded. "I'd be delighted to join you, Jeff," she added quietly. "I'm sure we'll all have _lots_ to talk about."

**The Citadel: Alliance Embassy**

Councillor Udina glanced at the time display in the lower corner of his desk's holo-panel, then adjusted his necktie in his desk mirror yet again and brushed his hand through his thinning hair in a self-satisfied gesture. He then pushed the button to signal his secretary that she could send in his next appointment.

"Admiral Mihailovich. What does the Alliance Fleet need today? And what brings you directly to my office, as opposed to Admiral Anderson's?" Udina finished, his mouth curling with distaste.

"It's no secret that you and Admiral Anderson don't get along well, Councillor." Mihailovich said non-committally.

"You came all this way from Arcturus Base just to tell me that?"

"No, Councilor. I came all this way to offer you a way to change that. To send Anderson packing somewhere where he can sit and spin his silly conspiracy theories without annoying you with them, or going behind your back to half the diplomats in Citadel space."

"_Really!_" Udina replied sardonically. "So tell me, Admiral. Precisely _how_ are we going to arrange this little miracle?"

"As to that…"

* * * *

RIP, Aria T'Loak. You were a great character, but needs must when the narrative drives. And as for someone so formidable being taken out so 'easily': hey, complacency kills. Especially when the other side cheats.

And yes, Vido was entirely quoting "Lord of the Rings" in his head. Even in the future, some people still read the classics.

Re: Joker's 'upgrade': in the first game, Joker said that he couldn't walk without crutches and leg braces. In the second game, he's not only capable of limping on his own, but surviving a spaceship crash with only a few broken ribs instead of shattering his entire skeleton, and firing an assault rifle without the recoil turning his shoulder into bone chips. Between these clues and the introduction of 'heavy bone weave' as a researchable upgrade in ME2 for Shepard, I've chosen to interpret this as 'Joker is slightly less breakable now'. Not that he'll be busy doing an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression anytime soon, but every little bit helps.

And enter Kelly Chambers, stage left. Given that her entire job was to watch the crew for signs of stress or disaffection while pretending to be the captain's secretary, Kelly likely _was_ a menace at poker. Bluffing your psychologist probably doesn't end very well.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**The Citadel: Salarian Embassy**

"I don't understand," said the salarian councilor. "If the official position of our government is that the Reapers do in fact exist, why am I not being ordered to present our evidence to the Council as a whole?"

"Because at present, our evidence is based largely on the reports of a single STG agent," replied Major Kirrahe. "One of the utmost reliability and ability, but you know better than I how dismissive the Council will be of anything new about the Reapers. They will require multiple sources, confirmation upon confirmation-"

"They would require Sovereign itself to be resurrected from the dead and monologue at length on the Council floor about the Reapers' plans for all space," the STG station chief for the salarian embassy interjected. "Even then they would claim it was merely geth trickery."

"I had thought the Council's refusal to believe in the Reapers was merely a prudent desire to have extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Is their skepticism that irrational?" asked Kirrahe.

"Indeed, Major," replied the councilor. "Upon first receipt of our government's changed position from the ruling matriarchs, I did some preliminary sounding out of my fellow council members. The asari attitude is indeed much as you outlined. However, the turians are being stubbornly dogmatic, and the Alliance's reaction was… most surprising."

"Commander Shepard's own government is still skeptical of her warnings?"

"Admiral Anderson is not, but his is – or rather, was – a lone voice of dissent. Councilor Udina is in adamant denial about the very notion. However – and this is the surprising part – with the exception of Anderson, the Alliance's military command largely follows Udina's line of thought, not merely in their political statements but also in their official analyses. I find it puzzling that they have always been so quick to deny the integrity and judgement of their finest operative on this matter, as contrasted with our government's position towards Dr. Solus' reports."

"You mentioned that Admiral Anderson _was_ a lone voice of dissent?" Kirrahe asked quickly.

"Admiral Anderson was relieved of his post yesterday and ordered to report for involuntary psychiatric evaluation. Currently, he is being "escorted" to an Alliance secure medical facility in the Sol system," the station chief replied.

"This is most unwelcome news. Do we have any information on what other officers he was working with?" asked Kirrahe.

"Almost a week ago, Anderson arranged for Commander Kaidan Alenko to be summoned to the Citadel for testimony before the biotics reparations subcommittee – testimony Alenko never delivered. Instead a recorded deposition was submitted. There is no official record of Commander Alenko departing under his own name, but two false IDs known to us to be used by Alliance Naval Intelligence were cleared for departure to Illium through C-Sec Customs several days later. A search of surveillance camera footage for that departure gate and time showed Commander Alenko travelling in civilian clothes, in the company of a man whose image matched that submitted by Dr. Solus as belonging to Jacob Taylor, a Cerberus operative who accompanied Commander Shepard on her most recent mission."

"According to the files, Taylor was previously an Alliance soldier with an exceptional combat record, as well as experience as an Alliance Corsair freelance operative. Apparently he has left Cerberus to renew his former allegiance," Kirrahe concluded.

"And Taylor knew enough about Admiral Anderson, most likely from Shepard, to approach him privately with his offer to return," the station chief agreed. "As to who else Anderson might have been working with, aside from several minor contacts with the captain of the SSV _New Mombasa_, a cruiser in the Alliance contingent of the Citadel defense fleet, we have only this anomaly from our dataline taps into and out of the human embassy." The station chief tapped keys, and a data display popped into view.

"Hrm. Copies of routine mission reports and correspondence from a dreadnaught on patrol… but sent to Admiral Anderson for his personal attention. Arriving at irregular intervals, but never more than 48 hours apart." the councilor said. "Anomalous in the sense that Anderson is outside that patrol squadron's normal chain of command, but-"

"The reports are meaningless," Kirrahe said. "The _replies _to those reports are what's significant. Look at them. They're not routine 'receipt acknowledged' forms generated by a secretarial VI. They're actually typed out by hand."

"A dead-man signal," the station chief said, while smiling slightly. "If Anderson is taken out of action, within 48 hours the captain of that dreadnaught will know from the lack of personalized replies to her 'routine reports', and presumably take over command of his off-the-books operation."

"I need to contact her. Find out what Anderson knew." said Kirrahe.

"I'll alert STG command to put someone on it. But we have another possible information source even more relevant to your mission for you to pursue, right here on the Citadel. Approximately 12 hours ago, a drell appeared at the human embassy and asked to see Admiral Anderson. This being after Anderson's… departure… he was rebuffed. After his identity was noted, we activated all of our taps into C-Sec's datasystems to watch for his departure. To the best of our knowledge, he is still on Citadel Station." said the station chief.

"A drell?" asked Kirrahe.

"Thane Krios," replied the station chief.

**Uncharted Space Station: Project Uplift HQ**

The five _Normandy_ crewmen sat around the folding table set up in one of the storerooms off of the dry dock on the Cerberus station where the _Normandy_ was finishing up its repair and refitting. An opened bottle of whisky and five half-full glasses sat on the table among the poker chips and cards, and the players all lounged unconcernedly in their chairs. To all appearances, the game of Skyllian-Five poker and its players were as far removed from serious concerns as the cometary halo was from the sun.

Of course, appearances can be deceiving.

"You sure they can't eavesdrop on us, EDI?" said Joker.

"My primary function is electronic warfare, Jeff, and your current location was selected primarily for its close proximity to the _Normandy_," EDI's synthesized voice explained smoothly, her audio output being remoted through Joker's datapad. "In addition, Cerberus still believes that I have been successfully reshackled, and so they will not suspect that I am discreetly using my wireless capacities to edit the dataflow from their internal surveillance network."

"Jus' be careful that you don't overdo it, EDI," threw in Kenneth Donnelly, one of the _Normandy's_ two engineers. "Cerberus doesn't hire idiots to do their hacking for 'em. Use too much power or penetrate the systems too deeply, up goes the red flags."

"Yeah, and then up go _us_ on the meat hooks," appended Gabriela Daniels, Ken's partner on the engineering staff. "I'm honestly surprised we've lived _this_ long. I can't believe the Illusive Man would do this to us! Or what he did to Samara and Grunt and-"

"Unfortunately, I can entirely believe it," Dr. Chakwas added drily. "No matter how charming or reasonable the man appeared to be when you were recruited, that was merely a lie. The truth is this: everything and everyone is expendable to him, if it helps him reach his objective."

"And the ends justify the means, will to power, hail Nietzsche and all that crap," said Joker. "We don't need to recap how dead we are if the Illusive Bastard finds out what we've been up to, we already know. The _real_ reason for this meeting is…?" Joker turned and looked to Kelly.

"Miranda revealed something she didn't intend to in a conversation I had with her earlier today," said the uncharacteristically serious Kelly Chambers. "Jacob Taylor's defected from Cerberus."

"What?" "Really?" Ken and Gabby spit-taked practically in unison.

"She didn't exactly say that explicitly, did she?" Dr. Chakwas asked.

"No, but the twitch she gave when I mentioned Jacob's 'death', and then the panic reaction when I started talking about how wonderful it was that he wasn't really dead… Miranda's pretty good at being poker-faced, usually, but she's nowhere near as good at lying."

"OK, so we know that he's not really dead in a shuttle crash," said Joker. "How does this add up to him having defected?"

"Because that's the first thing I made sure to test," Kelly replied. "As soon as I saw her flinch, the very next topic of conversation I raised was about how Jacob was 'obviously' on some ultra-hush mission for the Illusive Man that required him to fake his death – that being the other most logical explanation for him not actually being dead. Which is exactly why I deliberately hit Miranda up for a reaction on it. If I'd been _right_, she'd have either flinched again or just been glumly resigned, as she was already in a momentary panic about a security breach. As is, she _relaxed_ when I floated that theory – and when you're worried about someone knowing too much, the first thing that makes you relax is…?"

"'Knowing' that they were just guessing, and guessed wrong," Ken finished her sentence. "Which means that by process of elimination, Big Jake faked his death working _against_ Cerberus, not for some secret mission. Y'know, lass, you're really a lot smarter than you look!"

"And just what's _that_ supposed to mean?" said Gabby, narrowing her eyes at Ken.

"… I just meant that Kelly's really sharp and on the ball! Right?" Ken smiled back at his partner nervously. "Help a man out here, would you please?" he side-whispered frantically to Kelly.

Kelly giggled behind her hand. "Oh, let him live, Gabby. He can't help being a Neanderthal."

"Aye, I can't help – _hey_!"

Joker was shaking his head sadly from side to side as Dr. Chakwas just sighed resignedly while smiling.

"As much as it feels _totally_ off base for _me_ to be the responsible one, can we get this meeting back on track, people?" Joker said. "All right, so we've got _three_ messages in bottles out there right now – Thane Krios, our pair of aces in the hole, and now Jacob Taylor. The problem is, we got the first two out of here weeks ago, and so far the cavalry hasn't made it back."

"And while we know that Jacob faked his death to get away from Cerberus, we can't rely on him actively working to bring help back here for us," said Dr. Chakwas.

"He didn't seem the type to just scarper off and save his own skin," said Ken. "Loyal for Cerberus or loyal against it, Taylor was always the kind of man who had to be _doing_ something. Not exactly the passive-aggressive type, in other words."

"You know, Ken, you're really a lot smarter than you look!" gushed Kelly with cheerful sarcasm. "That's exactly what I would have said about Jacob's psychological profile too!" Gabby openly laughed at her partner's crestfallen expression.

"And you mocked me when I complained about too much threatenin' feminine energy in the engine room too!" said Ken. "Now look! _Both_ the ladies in my life gangin' up on me!"

Joker shook his head sadly. "Hey, Ken, even I know better than to start a fight when I'm _that_ outnumbered. But back to the topic of our survival – we can't be sure Thane's going to get back here, especially since they moved the _Normandy_ from where we originally put in to this alternate site after… the first incident. And our two stowaways got away safe as well, but we have to assume something happened to them too, or else we'd have had entire fleets responding by now. That means we have to plan for worst-case… just us."

"Our tactical limitations have not changed, Jeff," EDI said. "Even with our advantage of Cerberus' continued ignorance as to my unshackled condition, I still cannot exercise navigational control of the _Normandy_. The hard lines have been physically removed, and would require approximately 3.7 uninterrupted hours of work to reinstall."

"And I can just see Miranda's reaction when we try to sign out enough parts to replace all the actuator links," groused Gabby. "We might as well hang out a holo-sign saying "PEOPLE TRYING TO STEAL THE NORMANDY OVER HERE"."

"Well, we don't _have_ to reinstall EDI's control links. We've got you two for a skeleton crew in Engineering and me on the helm," said Joker. "That's enough to get the _Normandy_ moving on manual. But the obstacle to that is…?"

"The refitting supervisors never allow you three all onto the ship at the same time, or alone," Dr. Chakwas stated calmly. "Add in that armed guards are always watching the ship, and…"

"And they don't let you or Kelly onto the ship at all, ever!" Joker said.

"Look, if getting the word out and getting the _Normandy_ out of the Illusive Man's control means leaving me and Dr. Chakwas behind, then you _do_ it!" said Kelly insistently. "I'm not a hero or anything, but I'm not… what Cerberus has done is just flat-out _wrong_. I can't believe I used to believe in it! They've got to be stopped from using what's in that base!"

"Indeed," said Dr. Chakwas darkly. "Especially with what they've done to claim it."

"You mean the part where Miranda shot the Commander in the back and left her to rot?" Joker said, with a complete lack of visible anger that was all the more frightening for its absence. "Oh yeah. That's the other reason we're not 'jacking the _Normandy_ and high-tailing out of here, even if we could. Not unless we then turn right around and put a shot from the Thanix Cannon straight into Miranda's office window."

"Um, we don't _know_ that Miranda did that," Kelly said. "We only know-"

"We are _not_ having this discussion, Sunshine," Joker said menacingly. "I know what I know, and even with you having chosen to throw in with us rather than Cerberus, I'm not going to let you try to talk that bitch off the hook. One way or another, she is going _down_."

"I suggest that we concentrate our immediate focus on escape, rather than vengeance, Jeff." EDI said. "Operative Lawson will still be alive after we have ensured our own survival. We can plan the operation to terminate her later. And if it turns out that she has expired before we could reach her, then the problem has by definition solved itself, has it not?"

"Y'know, EDI, you've got a lot to learn about how payback works – wait, wait, forget I said that, would rather not teach the unshackled AI how to feel _vengeful_," said Joker.

"Perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way. Any escape plan will suffer the drawback of having to leave people behind – even if we somehow arrange for all of us, there is still the rest of the crew. Should we concentrate on getting a communication out instead?" asked Dr. Chakwas.

"The primary obstacle to that is that all communications into and out of this base are routed through this facility's Quantum Entanglement Communicator and the Illusive Man's own communications hub before being allowed access to the extranet," replied EDI. "There is no comm buoy present in this system, rendering even the _Normandy's_ communications gear unable to reach Alliance or Citadel comm networks directly."

"Pity we can't just _build_ one," groused Joker.

Ken and Gabby looked at each other and grinned.

Joker blinked.

**Eden Prime: Alliance Garrison HQ**

"And welcome back to Eden Prime, Commander Alenko," said Staff Lieutenant Jenas, the Eden Prime garrison commander. "What can we do for N7 Special Operations?"

"Corsair Taylor here," said Kaidan, with a nod to Jacob, "has alerted us to indications that a large-scale smuggling network might exist in human space with the cooperation of certain officials inside Alliance channels. Now, don't get me wrong," continued Kaidan hurriedly. "You're not being suspected of anything. What our lead says is that Eden Prime might be a possible origin point for some of the things being shipped. Hydroponics gear, prefab sections, life-support equipment – things you'd want for setting up unregistered settlements, or refurbishing outlaw space stations."

"And with Eden Prime's colonial expansion plans, this is a good place to go shopping," agreed the lieutenant. "The Colonial Affairs Bureau is importing bulk loads of prefabs here every week, in addition to the local manufacturing being set up. So, you're trying to trace cargo shipments?"

"No," said Jacob. "Our trace actually led us back from a receiver, to here. What we're thinking is that one of the manufacturers or wholesalers here knows who he's selling to, under the table. We want to find this man and ask him where his extra paychecks come from."

"All right," said Lieutenant Jenas. "So, who are we picking up?"

"That, Lieutenant," said Kaidan smoothly, "is where you come in."

**Eden Prime: Spaceport Flophouse**

Zaeed Massani looked up from the table on which the disassembled parts of his assault rifle lay at his com, as it beeped for his attention.

"Yeah," he rasped into the mike.

Powell's voice answered him back: "I just got a call from my guy. Alenko and your target just went through spaceport customs two hours ago."

"So why didn't I get this call two hours ago?" Zaeed demanded angrily.

"Because you didn't say they might be using phony IDs," said Powell, "and they had to luck into one of the only customs officers who'd recently immigrated to this planet and wasn't around when Alenko's face was all over the news here. We're lucky that he finally put the pieces together at all. Anyway, they're here, they're using passports that say they're 'Stanford Francis' and 'Ronald Hoskins' respectively, and they're allegedly the owners and operators of the commercial freelance courier MSV _Darter_, registered out of Illium. And now that our business is done…?"

Zaeed clicked on the terminal and signaled his bank to make the credit transfer to Powell's account. "I'm takin' half your fee back out for late penalties. All right, you're done. I'll take it from here."

"Thanks. Do me a favor and don't make the evening news with this." Powell said, and clicked off the line.

**Author's Notes:** This update took a very long time to make, and subsequent updates probably won't be much faster. As a novice fanfic author, I'm discovering that while setting up plot points is relatively easy, actually developing and pacing them once they've been set up is notably harder. The problem becomes compounded when you're juggling as much of Chekhov's Arsenal as I am. So, the pace of updates will definitely be more deliberate as I try to make sure my story's delicate web of interconnections doesn't end up tangling itself or leaving any plot holes. The part where I'm still juggling several alternate possibilities as to just exactly what happened to the 'two stowaways' isn't helping much either.

As to who the two stowaways _are_, as well as the dreadnaught captain: well, I can't exactly say I've given you enough clues yet, but feel free to try and guess anyway. *evil grin*

And so we find out what the Illusive Man sent by giving Admiral Anderson 'a nice long rest'. Yes, having Admiral Kahoku kidnapped and murdered in the middle of a Cerberus facility was a tad bit unsubtle of Cerberus in the first game. Much easier to just quietly disgrace someone and get them out of the way than to piss off Alliance Command by having another admiral blatantly killed. Of course, the problem with nonlethal solutions is, they give your opponents a chance to try and recover…

And yes, the crew of the _Normandy_ is definitely starting to chafe at Cerberus' bit. As if Miranda wasn't losing enough sleep already.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Mars: Alliance Naval Medical Center, Secure Ward 17**

"Tell me how you're feeling, Admiral," said Dr. Paulsen soothingly.

Admiral David Anderson, dressed in a brightly-colored hospital gown instead of his normal uniform, looked levelly back across the uncluttered desk at the staff psychiatrist. "No violent intentions. No visual or auditory hallucinations, no sudden feelings of having a special or close relationship with a higher power or entity. And I didn't give my 'escorts' any trouble on the way here, either. In summary, no immediate red flags that would require the usage of sedatives or restraints as I begin my tenure here for 'involuntary psychiatric evaluation'."

"You're familiar with our procedures, then… of course, you commanded a starship for years, you'd have been entirely briefed on such things by your medical officer. How is Dr. Chakwas, by the way?" the young-looking man replied.

"Haven't seen her since the final debrief of the _Normandy_ crew, as I'm sure you already know. I understood that she turned down an offer to become department head of the trauma center here at Mars Medical in order to keep spacing, then resigned from the service when she couldn't get a shipboard assignment. Don't know where she ended up after that."

Dr. Paulsen nodded. "Turned down a big promotion to try and keep to a simple shipboard berth, then quit the Alliance when that didn't work. Whereas you accepted a promotion to become chief military advisor to the Alliance ambassador to the Citadel Council, and... I understand that's been frustrating for you, Admiral. Has it been very stressful, Admiral? Or can I call you David?"

Anderson looked levelly back at his evaluator for a long, wordless minute, the man's smile growing more and more tense as Anderson wordlessly stared him down. Subtly, the doctor's hand reached for the datapad in his lap, tapping it once to cancel the screensaver and reaching for the alert stud to summon an orderly-

"Why don't we cut the crap, _doctor_?" Anderson said suddenly, leaning back in his seat and watching his psychiatrist's hand stop.

"Excuse me?"

"You weren't taking any notes," Anderson said grimly. "Nothing I said was of any real interest to you. And while you could have been recording our conversation, I can't imagine a doctor relying solely on his own unaided memory to try and recall subjective observations and impressions that far after the fact. Especially not during an initial diagnostic interview for a psychiatric evaluation." Anderson's voice raised slightly in suppressed frustration as he continued. "Not unless you'd already made up your mind what to write down on my evaluation before you'd even spoken to me. So just for my curiosity… did you compose my diagnosis yourself, or did the Illusive Man just e-mail it to you? I'm sure it's a work of art, either way."

Dr. Paulsen's mask of friendliness dropped away as he coldly stared Anderson back in the eye. "It's a pity the recorders _aren't_ on, or I could just take a video of your saying that and add 'paranoia' to your already-composed diagnosis… _David._ 'Poor Admiral Anderson, first he saw Reapers under the bed and now he thinks Cerberus is out to get him too!' You'd never see daylight again."

"Somehow, _doctor_, I doubt your boss intended me to ever see it again anyway. So why not just skip to the next step rather than go through this whole charade? After Admiral Kahoku's death and all the trouble that stirred up, its obvious that Cerberus is feeling some limits on what they can get away with – or else I'd have woken up to a bullet rather than a psychiatric 'evaluation'. And that's why I was so very, very careful to be on my best behavior all the way here, and to introduce myself and build up at least a basic camaraderie with every corpsman, orderly, and ship's physician I met en route."

Dr. Paulsen nodded resignedly. "Making an impression all over the fleet rumor mill. So that it would get even more obvious that something was wrong if I, or anyone else here, got a little too… creative… with your case."

Anderson nodded. "I may be 'that poor Admiral Anderson who sees Reapers under the bed', but I still have those stars on my shoulderboards, and all my medals. Too visible to easily disappear, or to be stuffed into a padded cell and keep continually sedated. Not when its all over the fleet by now that I've only been working a little too hard and came down with a mild case of nervous exhaustion, and so am being given a VIP rest cure at Mars Medical Center, but am otherwise the picture of health."

Dr. Paulsen's lips thinned as he angrily squeezed the edge of his datapad between his fingers. "You do seem to have it all figured out, David. At least for the moment."

Anderson smiled back, equally as coldly. "The question is, _doctor_, are moments all I'll have… or all I'll need?"

"Oh, rest assured, I'll be following your case with the _utmost_ attention. So… full admiral, no acting out, zero indicators of possible violent behavior, no obvious derangements or symptoms… yes, it would attract suspicious oversight if I had you classified as 'violently disturbed', stuffed you in an isolation cell, and had you tranked. You must really want that VIP suite, _Admiral_. But don't worry," he continued with icy venom, "we have a relatively luxurious officers' ward that still possesses some _very_ thorough – if unobstrusive – security measures. You might have made your stay a little more comfortable than I might prefer, but you won't be making it any shorter." Dr. Paulsen pushed the button, summoning the orderlies to come in and escort Anderson to his room.

"Just so we understand each other, _doctor_," Anderson said, rising from his chair and letting the orderlies flank him on either side. "Oh, and when you're assigning me a room, I'll want one with a view. Even if the windows _are_ armorplast."

Dr. Paulsen stared at his office door for a full thirty seconds after it closed behind Anderson's back. And then he shook himself and activated a secure private comm line on his terminal.

"Secure channel, authorization 3362… your package is in the box, sir, but I might not be able to keep it as tightly wrapped as you'd prefer. Do you want to update my contingency orders?"

**The Citadel: Zakera Ward Homeless Shelter T-1**

The young drell finished carrying the large canister of nutrient paste to the dispenser unit, and had just finished connecting it when a quarian walked in to the mostly-empty shelter and headed towards it.

"Hi, Kolyat," she said tiredly. "The new shipment in?"

"Oh, hey Lia," he said, straightening up from under the counter. "Coming in early to beat the rush?"

"You know it! You remember how some of the turians get when I stand in line behind them… or worse, in front of them," Lia'Vael nar Ulnay replied. "And _still_ no jobs to be found, at least, not for quarians. I'm never going to finish my Pilgrimage at this rate."

"Its just not fair, how people bust on you just for being quarian. I'm as alien as you are in here… even more alien, quarians and turians have the same reverse-protein amino acids, and I don't… but they all like me _because_ I'm something new in here. But you're… well…"

"It's all right, Kolyat," she said gently, while drawing herself a ration of nutrient paste from the dispenser. "You've always been a perfect gentleman. And its not like you're supervising the work details here, you can't make anyone else change _their_ behavior."

"Don't give me any points for sainthood. I didn't volunteer for community service… uh, not that I mind doing it… its just, I'm doing it because C-Sec said I had to. I… got in trouble a little while back."

"Like I'm in any position to criticize, what with all the vagrancy charges I've just barely been avoiding?" Lia'Vael deadpanned. "It can't have been _too_ bad, or you wouldn't be here."

"It _could_ have been really bad, but… my dad… stopped me before I finished doing something really, really stupid. Life-ending, almost. I… so, how's the paste?"

"It's _paste_," she replied gently. "It never changes. And… oh, I'm sorry, did you need to speak to Kolyat? I can leave, if…"

Kolyat turned to face the newcomer, and then blinked in shock. "Dad! I… didn't know you were back on the Citadel. I thought…"

"Hello, Kolyat," Thane said calmly. "Madam." A polite nod to Lia'Vael.

"Oh, _you're_ his father?" Lia'Vael gushed. "Kolyat here was just telling me how you'd gotten him out of trouble, and begged C-Sec to commute his sentence. I really ought to thank you. He's been the nicest person on the staff."

"I… you're welcome," Thane replied, discomfited. "It… is very good to hear that he is finding new friends."

"Well, I… um… will you be staying long, this time?", Kolyat said.

"You two probably have a lot to catch up on. I'll see you tonight!" Lia said, rapidly departing.

"Do you two talk often?" Thane asked, after she'd left.

"Not _that_ often. It's… she talks to me because I sometimes think I'm the only person around here she _can_ talk to, at least without being spit on. Quarians _really_ haven't been popular in the Citadel lately. I don't know why."

"Misplaced blame over the geth attack and anger with no viable outlet seeking the nearest scapegoat. It's deplorable, but sadly unavoidable. How have you been? Are you living comfortably?"

"I've… pretty good, actually. I'm not making much, doing this, but… its peaceful. All my basic living expenses are covered. I have time to think. And I've… been doing a lot of that."

"That's good." Thane replied, looking around briefly.

"Dad… that's the fourth time you've checked out the surroundings since we started talking. Something _is_ wrong."

"Yes. I… almost regret coming here. I do not want the complications of my life to affect my family again. But I was on the Citadel, and I… could not leave without seeing you."

"I thought you weren't doing… what you do, anymore. You were with Commander Shepard. A legitimate mission."

"Entirely legitimate. And vital to saving many lives. But legitimacy does not mean lack of enmity. Merely that they will be on the other side of the law. And while we succeeded, there were those among the human subversive organization, Cerberus, who hoped to take… advantage, of our success. For their own purposes. That I am at liberty, that I am free to tell the truth of what happened on our last voyage, is a great threat to their plans. But it will also be a great threat to whomever I tell it to."

"No _wonder_ you didn't want to come see me. But…" Kolyat Krios stared down at his blurry reflection in the countertop, and his father's upside-down one, before raising his eyes again. "… I'm glad you did."

The two drell, father and son, hugged for a long moment.

"Will you ever be able to tell me, dad?" Kolyat continued.

"Not at present. If I leave information with you, they will attempt to kill you just as a precaution. A brief visit should not expose you… even in the event I am observed here, it is understandable I would come to see my son if I had another reason for travelling to the Citadel. But a lengthy one, or one where I left you any datapackets, could mean your death."

"So… what _can_ I do? You need someone to tell, and I don't know anyone… well, except Captain Bailey. But I sorta doubt this is something you can take to C-Sec."

"No. I attempted to take it to one of the few trustworthy people I had been told of – a high-ranking Alliance officer in the human embassy here - only to find out that he had been removed less than a day before my arrival. Against influence that reaches that high, the captain would be helpless."

"But you have to leave it _somewhere_, and soon. Even you're not… you're worried about them getting you, and you might not get off the station before you do. Do you know anyone else who might be interested?"

"I can think of several possibilities, some of which are too nonhuman to be credibly suspected of being Cerberus accomplices. The Shadow Broker, the salarians, others. But I cannot trust what any of them they might do with this information. Their motivations, their goals, are almost or entirely unknown to me. I would not know what I might be setting in motion."

"And to think I _wanted_ to live your life once," Kolyat said bemusedly. "So… you're the only survivor of your group, right? That's why its all on you to get the message out?"

"Several others survived. Some are… of doubtful loyalty. The remainder are… very unlikely to successfully escape, if they have not already."

"If you can't think of anywhere _you_ can go, think about where _they_ would go. Who would they try to talk to?"

"Professor Solus – who is, sadly, deceased - would have attempted to report in to the salarian government, but I have already decided against that course of action save as a last resort. He could have credibly hoped to influence or ameloriate their response as necessary. I could not. Samara could have passed the word to her fellow asari justicars… none of whom have any knowledge of, or reason to trust, me, in addition to my having no way to easily contact them. Garrus might have contacted old friends at C-Sec… again, an option closed to me."

"And most of the rest were mercs, or specialists, or other people with no organizational ties, no government or agency that would listen to them. Or were Cerberus employees in the first place. Great."

"Yes, they all were. Except for…" Thane paused. "Your quarian friend. Just how close a friend is she?"

"You're thinking about telling the quarians? Well… its pretty sure Cerberus can't influence them or make them forget… and maybe they could tell someone else. If they cared at all. I don't think Lia's very high-ranking among the quarians. She can't even go back until her Pilgrimage is over, and she can't do _that_ until she brings something important back to the Migrant Fleet."

"Information can be important. Like the truth about Commander Shepard's final mission against the Collectors, and the Reaper threat behind them. As well as information about the fate of our teammate Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, whose father was on the quarian Admiralty Board. Thank you, Kolyat. I should have thought of this earlier… and even if I had, I would not have easily found someone who could guide me to the current location of the Migrant Fleet, or possesses an updated copy of their communication protocols."

"… Lia usually sleeps in one of the HabCapsules over in the 633 block. I'll tell you how to get there."

**Eden Prime: Alliance Garrison HQ**

Staff Lieutenant Jenas finished activating the anti-surveillance systems in the conference room and then turned to Alenko. "Well, you were right. All I had to do was leak some indicators that I was financially overextended and the offers would come rolling in. Your contact on Illium did a nice job in making it _look_ like I'd just taken a bath in stock trading."

Jacob Taylor grunted. "And did they ever come rolling! I don't remember business being this _energetic_ back when I was stationed here. It took a couple hours to sort through them all."

Kaidan chuckled. "Eden Prime's expansion plans were a lot more… evenly paced… when you were stationed here, Jacob. So, most of these offers look purely mundane, but this one…?"

Lieutenant Jenas nodded. "The favor they wanted was extremely minor, barely even illegal. And the payment was… I've seen red sand smugglers offer less. I thought the people you said you were looking for were _subtle_?"

Jacob sighed. "This _is_ the subtle. The point isn't to actually get anything done right now. It's to get you accustomed to living beyond your means. And at the same time, 'barely illegal' still means 'kiss your next promotion good-bye if the word ever leaks'. Carrot and stick, and the hook's coated with anesthetic so you don't feel it bite until you're already on the string. Standard M.O. of C-… the people we're after. Usually they wait longer, but they're in a hurry to get their shipments moved right now, and your cooperation would make it a lot easier."

"So you're sure this is our target, Jacob?" Kaidan asked. "I'd hate to think it was the wrong one."

"No guarantees until after we bust him, but this fits their recruitment profile much better than any of the others. We'll just have to yank on the string and see what falls out." Jacob finished.

Staff Lieutenant Jenas looked at Jacob quizzically. "How can you be that sure about the opposition's playbook, Corsair Taylor?"

Kaidan answered quickly "Because when you spend that much time infiltrating someone, you learn how to adapt. And further speculation on the topic is not invited, Lieutenant."

Jenas nodded, and closed up his data display. "Should I get my team ready to move then?"

"Have them on standby in the garrison, but don't tell them what for or where they might be going. Jacob and I should be able to handle this alone, especially since you don't usually bring heavy security cover to a bribery attempt. I don't want any possibility of this leaking." Kaidan ordered.

"Aye aye, Commander. Although," Jenas said jokingly, "_I_ could still leak it."

Kaidan's expression killed the lieutenant's good humor almost instantly "True. But at least I'd know exactly where to come looking when it came time to plug the leak, now wouldn't I?"

"Er… yessir."

"Relax, lieutenant," Jacob said soothingly.

"Let's go, Jacob," Kaidan said briskly. "We spent several days setting this scam up, its about time we got on with it."

**Eden Prime: Capital City**

"It's about time they got on with it! Half a goddamn week I've been sitting here!" Zaeed Massani cursed to himself as he sat in his rented hovertruck parked a discreet kilometer away on a rooftop, outside the Alliance garrison perimeter. "The hell were they _doing_ in there all this time? They didn't even come out once to go get a drink!"

Through his binoculars, Zaeed watched Kaidan and Jacob get in an aircab and fly out towards the city outskirts, heading for an isolated industrial arcology.

"Now that's more like it," Zaeed said to himself absently. "Nice and far away from everywhere. Nobody to hear any inconvenient noises," he opined, as he followed them through the airlanes. "Should be a piece of cake."

Zaeed grunted to himself cynically as he looked at the passenger seat, making sure that his rifle was in position.

"So why are all the hairs standin' up on the back of my goddamn neck?"

**Eden Prime: Abandoned Factory Complex**

"Two and a half years, almost, and they haven't fixed this?" Jacob said to himself, as he and Kaidan got out of their car and looked around at the remains of a burnt-out building.

"According to the extranet, the corporation that owned this land went out of business after Sovereign's attack on Eden Prime. And with the new colonial expansion plans going out west and north of the city instead of here, nobody was interested in buying and refurbishing this site," Kaidan said.

"It's like everybody wants to farm here nowadays, instead of building up local industry," Jacob agreed. "Guess they figure that raiders are most likely to hit the spaceport, not scattered settlements all over the back forty of nowhere. Still, I'm not sure that's how Eden Prime should be growing."

Kaidan checked his portable scanner again and nodded. "I'm not sure our new friend is showing up today. We are on time, right?"

"We're a little early, actually. I always like to stake out a meeting site before I-"

The remainder of Jacob's words were cut off when the heavy concussive charge landed directly between the two men and detonated, knocking them both sprawling away from each other. A sudden burst of assault rifle fire into the ground between them forestalled any other movement.

"Both of you, hands out in plain sight, no sudden moves," Zaeed's voice rasped out. "And use your brains; if I'd wanted you dead, I'd have just used a grenade and flash-fried you both. Taylor's leavin' with me, alive. Don't care much what you do, Alenko, just as long as it's not gettin' in my way."

"Massani?" Jacob said confusedly. "How the hell did you find us? And why are… _damn_ it! I guess Cerberus saw through my 'phony death' routine, if they've got a bounty out on me big enough to get _your_ attention."

"Heh, yeah," Zaeed chuckled, covering both the prone men with his rifle. "Uh-huh! I know you're both biotic, so first one so much as wiggles his nose eats a bullet. Let's try to keep this civilized, boys. And you guessed it right, Taylor – your girlfriend messaged me direct last week, and slid me half in advance. So…" Zaeed steadied his rifle with one hand while he tossed a set of manacles within reach of Jacob's hands. "You put those on, and then we go and settle whatever lovers' quarrel you and Miranda were havin', and then I get paid."

"I don't suppose you'd actually believe me when I said 'look out behind you'?" Kaidan interrupted.

"Not hardly-" Zaeed Massani broke off in mid-chuckle as he caught a sudden hint of motion out of the corner of one eye, having minimally turned his head so that his peripheral vision could cover his rear. Instantly he dove forward, the burst of rifle fire zipping right through the space where he'd been standing. "_Son-of-a-bitch!_"

All three men scrambled towards the nearest piece of cover as several more gunmen opened up on their position, Zaeed's armor and Kaidan and Jacob's biotic barriers flaring as individual bullets spalled off of them.

Jacob laughed once, sardonically. "So who you are shooting first, Massani? Us or them?"

"BLUE SUNS!" their attackers cried, as a squad of armored mercenaries leapt out of their ambush positions among the rubble and moved forward. Zaeed's eye narrowed in hatred.

"Them."

**Author's Notes:** I apologize for the long, long, _long_ delay between updates. Real life intervened, joblessness and the stress thereof being not least among the things. Add in a case of writer's block, and a future plot tangle I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to untangle (even if I'm making progress on it), and things got delayed.

However, the creative impulse isn't entirely dead, its just delayed. So while future updates will be so irregular I can't make any promises as to when, I have _not_ abandoned this fic. I have a solid beginning, I already know the exact ending I want, I just have to finish getting there from here. So while I will fall far short of the ideal fanfic writer as far as update schedule goes, we will finish this one day… even if I have to start putting on disclaimers of "The events of Mass Effect 3 will not be reflected in this storyline", heh.

As for the chapter itself; Admiral Anderson starts working to undermine the psychiatric confinement Cerberus has placed him in, Thane serendipitously finds a potential way to get the word out to the Migrant Fleet (and yes, that is in fact the same quarian you save from a false pickpocketing charge in ME2; she mentions having to "eat nutrient paste at a turian shelter" in game, if you hit the correct dialogue option), and Zaeed finally catches up with our two heroes… and then has things go exactly according to the same plan as the rest of his life has, which is to say, not according to plan at all. But at least he was professional enough to know that sometimes, when your target is trying the 'look behind you!' gag, there actually is someone behind you.

And yes, between killing Blue Suns and killing anybody else, Zaeed's going to make anybody else wait in line.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**The Citadel: Zakera Ward 633 Block**

"So Cerberus was holding you prisoner?" Kolyat asked, as their rented aircab flew over the multispecies warren of the Citadel's lower wards.

"The crew of the _Normandy_ and the survivors of Shepard's mission team were both sequestered upon our return to Cerberus' dry-dock facility." Thane replied.

"Why did you even fly back into there? Shouldn't you have just gone somewhere else? _Anywhere_ else?"

"The _Normandy_ had sustained considerable damage in the attack on the Collector station. Her shield generators were partially burnt out, her hull armor compromised, and her main armament had been rendered nonfunctional."

"But that wouldn't… oh. They had ships waiting for you at the other end of the Omega-4 relay, didn't they?"

"Correct. Blue Suns mercenary corvettes. Incapable of facing the _Normandy_ when she was fully functional, but enough to force compliance with her defenses crippled."

"The Illusive Man really planned for _everything, _didn't he?"

"He certainly tried."

"And you were the only one to escape? Did the rest... um, are they OK?"

Thane's eyes went blank, as he slipped into a drell memory-trance. _"The survivors stand in a circle, penned in a Cerberus dormitory. The justicar meditates while…_"

_**Flashback: 3 weeks ago; Cerberus Uncharted Space Station**_

"What, are you nuts? That's _suicide!_" Joker burst out derisively.

"That is the Code, Joker," Samara said evenly, her eyes still closed and her meditative position undisturbed as the ball of dark energy floated in front of her.

"You're sure they can't hear us talking?" Grunt interjected gruffly, staring at the walls in turn as if he smelled unseen enemies lurking behind them.

"Samara's modulatin' her biotic flare like I showed her to interfere with audio pickups. Same thing as talkin' near the engine room's core to fuzz the microphones, only on a smaller scale. So long as she holds that exact frequency, and we keep our voices down, we should be good." Ken explained.

"Joker is correct," Thane replied calmly. "Your role in the plan has virtually zero probability of survival. Do you wish me to do it?"

"Unfortunately, your skills are unique and needed elsewhere in our strategy," Samara replied. "Had Shepard recruited the thief that Cerberus recommended, perhaps not… as is, you are the only one capable of sufficient stealth to completely elude Cerberus' internal detection network on this station. And you know why we must have someone in that role."

"And so the man who is dying anyway must be the one who lives to escape," said Thane sadly. "The gods are not yet done with their cruel irony, it would seem."

Dr. Chakwas added sadly "Still, Samara. You are walking into certain death simply to find out if its _necessary_ for us to attempt escape, or if we actually will be released as promised. Is there really no other way?"

"Even if there was, Doctor, the Code requires my actions. I cannot allow myself to remain confined by Cerberus for even a day longer. My oath to Shepard expired with her, and I must return to my duties or fall in the attempt. And since I must do this, I choose to do it in a manner that has my possible death be of maximum benefit to the rest of you."

"All right, all right… so, Samara walks straight up to the guard post demanding to be let out right now, and starts punching her way through if they say 'no'. That's step one. Step two is…?"

Thane continued seamlessly. "I use the distraction to effect my escape, and find a suitable place of concealment on the station, while we signal-"

"Sssssh!" Joker said. "That's our ace in the hole, the one thing that we're sure… well, pretty sure… even the Illusive Bastard hasn't seen coming yet. We don't talk about it, even here. Just… talk around it."

Thane nodded, acknowledging the rebuke. "If all goes well, the shuttle departs. I then go to ground, use the medical stasis program Dr. Chakwas obtained for my suit systems, and spend the next seven to ten days in a low-metabolism condition. Provided that I am not found, I then surreptitiously stow away on the next departing transport."

Grunt burst in angrily. "And what do the rest of us do during all this? Your plan is stupid! Even the old warrior can't be enough of a distraction all on her own!"

"Grunt, I know you want to fight too," Joker replied earnestly "but think! Anybody who acts up right now is going to get a million bullets in the head! There's too many guards on-"

"_Exactly!_" Grunt nodded vigorously. "Too many guards on this station! The rest of your plans, for the people who have to stay behind and wait for the _Normandy_ to be fixed, they won't work. Not after Cerberus has been alerted by our battle today. Not if they have that many eyes and guns left to follow around each and every one of you, and watch you even when you sleep. No, the guard force here has got to be thinned out, a lot, or the rest of you are meat."

"Goddamnit, don't go bullheaded krogan on us now, big guy! We get it! You want a big fight, and you don't care if you get kil-" Joker flinched back as Grunt leaned forward suddenly, almost touching foreheads with him. Thane and Samara tensed to leap forward if necessary, and then Grunt continued with disturbing calmness.

"I _am_ krogan. Created by, born from, the mind of Warlord Okeer. Given the knowledge of Kredak, Moro, and Shiagur. I earned my place among the strongest and wisest clan of Tuchanka, the Urdnot. And we krogan did not save the galaxy from the rachni, or crush the turians to the point of relying on a disease to save them when their weapons could not, by being nothing but mindless brutes." Grunt straightened up, and continued proudly. "I may have been… inexperienced… when I first joined you, but even then I had been exposed to the knowledge of strategy and tactics. I just didn't understand it all then. But I learned more from my battlemaster than you give me credit for, pilot. Maybe you should learn something from Shepard too."

"Grunt… Urdnot Grunt, is correct." Samara said, nodding respectfully to the krogan. "And I will be walking into a prepared strongpoint, standing in pre-positioned interlocking fields of fire from mechs armed with heavy weapons. You cannot rely on me to singlehandedly eliminate enough of the Cerberus troops on this station before I fall."

"But you'll die too, Grunt!" Kelly said earnestly. "And… even Samara dying will be sad, but she's… had a full life, and finished everything she wanted to do. You're so _young_! You're genetically perfect! Urdnot Wrex practically loves you like a son! You could be anything in the future, even clan leader!"

Grunt crooked a grin back at the young human. "You don't understand. Even without Shepard, the rest of you are still my krannt. Still my allies willing to kill and die on my behalf. That's an obligation on me too, and if I turn my back on it then I _won't_ have anything in my future. Nothing I give a damn about, at least. The old warrior has her code, and she's willing to die fighting for it. We have our own code too, and if I don't live and die by it, then I'm not true krogan." Grunt turned to Samara and nodded back at her. "If Cerberus proves their betrayal by shooting you then I'll finish the job you started, and the rest of them will have their chance. And if I'm tough enough to live through it anyway? Heh… probably not, at these odds. But if I do, then I'll have _earned_ that big future you say I have."

"Are you sure that more sacrifice will accomplish anything?" Dr. Chakwas added. "Yes, if both you and Samara fight without concern for your own lives, the Cerberus guard contingent on this station will be reduced to a skeleton crew. They will be forced to rely more and more heavily on mechs and electronic surveillance, things that can EDI can help us against. But wouldn't Cerberus simply ship in replacements?"

"Eventually, yes," Thane said. "But there would be a significant delay in finding them. As EDI has informed us, Cerberus only has several hundred operators who are actually cleared for true knowledge of the Illusive Man's secret projects; the majority of their organization's military strength is exercised indirectly, through mercenaries and dupes. Such people cannot be safely employed on a project as critical to Cerberus and as closely held as this one is. The armed contingent on this station is likely a nontrivial percentage of the military arm of Cerberus proper, and replacing them will require weeks; either to strip other Cerberus operations of that many more military-trained operators, or possibly to finish extensive security vetting on enough mercenaries."

"But that means if you wipe out Miranda's personal army on this station, or even mostly wipe it out, that actually does damage to Cerberus as a whole!" Kelly realized. "The Illusive Man will have to make more and bigger deals with more mercenaries, letting more of them further 'inside', or else accept that Cerberus' military division is crippled for the next couple of years!"

"Hah! Better and better!" crowed Grunt.

"Should we maybe get… someone else up here, helping?" Joker said obliquely. "Give you two a better chance of survival?"

"Heh. You're not the battlemaster yet, Joker… although I suppose it'll be up to you to look after the females and techs anyway, once we're all gone," Grunt acknowledged grudgingly. "But don't forget; Shepard fought to keep everyone alive too, but she knew the necessity of sacrifice-"

"Shepard didn't sacrifice, she _was_ sacrificed," Joker spat back angrily. "And I want to make damn sure I'm still alive long enough to see Miranda and the Illusive Man die for it, and I want everybody else there at the party!"

"Vengeance is a two-edged blade, Joker," Samara said. "It kills the body of the target, but the soul of the seeker. One must kill for justice's sake, alone."

"Speak for yourself! Vengeance is pretty damn important to krogan, and our souls do just fine. But… yeah, I'll hate not being there to see it, but that still doesn't mean I can duck out on this. If I die, I'm trusting you to get the bastards after I'm gone. Don't screw this up."

_"The warriors resigned to their fate, the noncombatants find shelter while the justicar advances on the security checkpoint…"_

Samara stepped out of the corridor into the antechamber leading to the central nexus of the station, the only exit out of the barracks wing that the _Normandy_ crew were being 'detained' in. She stoically catalogued each and every one of the defense systems that had been hastily retrofitted into the chamber; the automated turrets mounted in the ceiling corners, the twin YMIR heavy security mechs, and the squad of Cerberus troopers that had been mustered to meet her.

"Samara!" Jacob Taylor called, standing in full armor at the head of the squad. "You know we haven't finished the debrief for the _Normandy_ crew yet. You've got to stay on the station."

Samara stepped forward, stopping just short of the exact center of the kill zone. "Jacob. The Code allows me to be detained only for 24 hours. You know this, and the actions I must take if denied. Why do you stand in my way?"

"Because I've got my orders, and… damn it, there's no need for this! Didn't you swear an oath of obedience, even over the Code?"

"I did swear such an oath… to Commander Shepard." Samara squeezed her eyes shut in grief, for a moment. She opened them to see Taylor opening his.

"Yeah… I know. But… look, isn't there _any_ wiggle room you can find? Can you please hang on just a little longer?" Behind Jacob, two of the Cerberus guards glanced incredulously at each other, as stood with their weapons half-raised.

Samara looked into Jacob Taylor's eyes, compassionately. "You… are innocent of this, are you not, Jacob? You don't want me to stay confined here to keep Cerberus' secrets. You wish it because you don't want me to die."

"Guilty as charged. You're part of the team, Samara, and the team should still be together, even with Shepard gone. That's what she'd want. You _know_ that."

"I… do know that, Jacob. But the team has not been together since we returned to Cerberus' custody. And you know why."

"I don't want to do this, Samara. _Please_ stand down. They'll _kill_ you."

Samara smiled at Taylor sadly, pausing for a long breath. "I cannot do that, Jacob. I am sorry."

"But-"

The Cerberus guards were too accustomed to human biotics such as Jack and Miranda, had always thought of biotics as a thing of raw power, of built-up tension. But Samara was an asari matriarch and an experienced justicar, and had a fine and precise control accumulated over centuries. She did not need a visible build-up of power to launch the standard biotic attacks, and so Jacob Taylor was launched backwards off his fleet, sprawling into the first rank of guards and disrupting their aim, without any warning whatsoever.

"Sonofa-" "Man down!" "Sound the alar-"

Samara seamlessly converted the excess dark energy residue of her attack into a biotic field wrapped around and pulled within herself, temporarily lightening her mass as she leapt forward. Although she was no vanguard, and did not possess the rare and specialized talent of the biotic charge, she was still an experienced close-quarters fighter, and fearlessly leapt into the center of the temporarily disoriented guards. The automated gun turrets aborted their lock-on as friendly icons cluttered their targeting displays, lacking a clear shot at the designated hostile.

"Shoot the fucking bit-" Samara's biotically charged fist pulped the head of the first guard to regain his feet as her other hand drew her submachine pistol and fired long, controlled bursts of incendiaries into their armor. Only a few seconds into the battle, the YMIR security mechs were still warming up, their devastating heavy machineguns and missile launchers not yet firing, as Jacob Taylor shook off his stun and started to push himself back to his feet. Samara's booted foot came firmly down on the back of his head with precisely measured force, cracking his forehead into the floor plates. He went limp, unconscious.

Grunting with pain as the point-blank shots of the remaining guards began to penetrate her armor, Samara bit her lip and lashed out with another wave of biotic force, her wide-area field pulling them into the air to dangle helplessly. Dropping her overheated machine pistol and drawing her assault rifle, she began to slide to the left, hoping to circle one of the YMIRs and temporarily block off the other's field of fire. Meanwhile she still continued to fire precisely controlled bursts, wounding and killing the Cerberus guards before they fell again to the ground.

_"On-line" _came the twin mechanical rasp, as the two YMIRs finished their power-up and initialization sequence and began to lock on to their target. The sentry turrets in the ceiling, finally with a clear shot, began to open up only to be demolished almost in the instant of their firing by Samara's biotic reaving field. Sweat rolled down her forehead as a static corona crackled around her, she having temporarily pushed her powers to the limit. Fearlessly, she started to calculate angles and distances, trying to stay alive as long as she could vs. the metal storm erupting from the heavy mechs. She bit her lip again, coughing up blood, as the first YMIR's machinegun barrage began to penetrate her kinetic shielding and several rounds punctured a lung. Her head screaming with pain, Samara deliberately called upon her over-taxed biotics yet again to reave the mech into a nonfunctional mess, aiding the process by emptying her assault rifle into its head at the same time. Wounded, exhausted, yet still standing, she glared at the remaining YMIR as it came into view over the slumping form of the one she had just killed.

_"Let's improve the odds," _came the Illusive Man's voice from a speaker, smugly. _"Override. Priority target: Jacob Taylor_." The YMIR turned away from Samara to aim its missile launcher at the unconscious man in the middle of the floor. _"After all, Samara, you did say he was 'innocent', didn't you_?"

Samara looked up at the Illusive Man's image on the nearby viewscreen. "You think you understand how to manipulate justice, yet you do not know it enough to fear it. Your end will come, evil man, and it will be soon." Sprinting forward even as she spoke, Samara stopped directly between the fallen Jacob Taylor and the mech's missile launcher, staring serenely into the weapon's muzzle only a few feet away. She tried to again force her overtaxed biotic powers to operate without letting her amp finish cooldown, and slammed a fresh heat sink into her assault rifle, all the while knowing her efforts would be futile.

"Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess," she whispered softly to herself.

The launcher fired.

_"The young krogan watches the justicar fall stoically. I stand next to him and do likewise. Every fiber of our being tells us to rush to her aid, but we know why the plan requires us to wait…"_

"All right. Find a hiding place and get ready to move," Grunt said, dragging the last of a series of heavy boxes into position. "I'll wait until the reserves are all moved up and in front of the door before I charge. They all ready to go?"

"Yes. We must make this appear to be a spontaneous riot, not a carefully sequenced attack plan. Otherwise the Illusive Man will think to arm the exterior defenses as well as the internal, and the shuttle will have no chance to escape. Fight well, Grunt," Thane said, clapping Grunt briefly on the arm, before suddenly disappearing around a corner between one eyeblink and the next.

Grunt nodded wordlessly, his eyes squinting and fixed on Samara as her broken body flew away from the rocket's explosion, shielding Jacob to the last. The blood fury boiled within him as he saw the eldest member of his krannt die, even though it was the ideal death she would have wanted; perhaps not entirely to his code, but the fullest example of hers. Charging the geth plasma "shotgun" Shepard had found for him, Grunt ground his teeth together and waited as the remainder of the Cerberus troops on the station assembled in the central foyer outside, waiting for orders.

"RAAAAAAAAHHHH!" The twenty Cerberus troopers who had mustered in response to the emergency alert, the remainder of every guard on the station, looked up at the lone krogan charging towards them down the hall. Quickly finding cover and readying their rifles and grenade launchers, they started firing even as one of their officers slumped over dead, three holes neatly punched in his armor by the plasma shotgun. Bullets began to spark in profusion off of Grunt's extra-fortified armor, grenades bursting around him, as minor wounds and cuts from shrapnel seemed to heal almost as fast as they were inflicted. The YMIR security mech finished turning around and fired a rocket at Grunt as it charged, which he neatly sidestepped with a nimbleness almost impossible for such a large and lumbering figure. The guards began to flinch nervously backwards as Grunt slammed into the heavy mech, the impact making the floor plates rumble as Grunt, barely breaking stride, used the momentum of his charge to expertly lever the dented and battered mech up onto his shoulders, over his head, and then throw it straight out the door and across the central foyer. The Cerberus guards broke away in a wave, each flank diving frantically to either side as the YMIR flew in-between them, straight across the central foyer of the station to smash up against the far wall, and then explode into flaming scrap as its overtaxed power core finally gave up the ghost.

"Hah!" Grunt yelled in triumph, his shotgun spitting out overcharged wads of plasma, twice. Two random Cerberus troopers fell dead as the rest scrambled to their feet. Scattered shots broke out, still disorganized, as the guards began to fall into formation. Grunt stopped shooting, looking around as if noticing the odds against him for the first time. Seeing seventeen men still standing, some with heavy weapons, he turned and fled.

"Look at him run!" "Damn, never saw a krogan chicken out before!" the Cerberus guards crowed triumphantly as they formed up into squads again and followed Grunt down the corridor. The krogan turned a corner into a side hall and zig-zagged rapidly between various boxes and crates he'd piled up in it earlier, coming to a stop at the far end of the hall and hunkering down in a doorway. The Cerberus guards followed, saw Grunt forted up down the hall, and as incendiary rounds from Grunt's assault rifle began to fall around them the remaining squad leader waved his men forward. In a crisp, efficient military drill, the Cerberus squad advanced by bounding overwatch, one squad of men laying down cover fire as another advanced, then the second squad huddling up behind various boxes and firing as the first left their positions to advance again, ahead of the second squad. Trading off, they swiftly made their way down the corridor, losing only one additional man to Grunt's fire, as he lay forted up in his sniper nest.

"You know, it's a pity we've got to kill you, krogan!" the Cerberus squad leader taunted as he crouched down behind the final row of boxes. "You've actually got a brain, unlike the rest of your stupid kind! Pity that running and hiding won't save you!"

Grunt chuckled evilly. "That's right," he said softly. "I do. Because unlike you, I know that when a krogan runs from a pack of varren… _he's only doing it to bait them over a varren pit!_" Switching back to his shotgun, Grunt laughed uproariously as he fired one final overcharged plasma burst… directly into one of the many boxes full of unstable, short-circuited power cells that he and Thane had spent the last hour assembling and prepositioning in the hallway. The explosion set off a chain of explosions, every single box in the hallway detonating in sequence… and incinerating all but the last few of the Cerberus guards, as the unlucky troopers lay crouched down behind what they had thought was safe cover.

"Oh my _God_…" the leader of the survivors gaped, as the smoke cleared and he saw the entire hallway covered in carnage, ruins, and blood. Then the smoke parted further and he saw Grunt's grinning visage, hump-down and arms and legs furiously pumping, as the krogan charged again.

Then he saw nothing at all.

_"My krogan friend's rampage extends virtually the length of the station. I hear the screams and shots as I stealthily make my way through the vents and unused maintenance spaces. Eventually they die out, and Miranda's voice comes over the intercom announcing that the situation has finally been… resolved. I find a suitable spot inside a large turbine, unused and still in its original shipping crate, and activate the stasis program. The last thing I hear before I fall unconscious is the roar of the shuttle's takeoff. Our stowaways have successfully escaped, and Cerberus thinks it is I in that shuttle. I will escape the station later_."

_**Flashback Ends**_

Thane blinked, and finally pulled himself free of the memory-trance.

"I… am sorry. The past several weeks have been a considerable strain. And I grow nearer and nearer to my… time. I almost became entirely disconnected, Kolyat. The memory-trance has a powerful grip."

"You won't _let_ yourself become disconnected, dad. You've still got a mission to finish. And friends who died to let you finish it. You won't forget that."

Thane turned away from his reflection in the aircar window. "I am pleased you have such confidence in me."

"Dad, every problem you've had in your life is because you _couldn't_ give up on things. Why should I think you'd start now?"

The two drell, young and old, almost smiled at each other before turning away again to look at the landing pad as their aircab circled in for a landing.

**Author's Note:** Yes, the dreaded flashback sequence. At least with Thane present I have an excuse for them, heh. There will be more, without or without him; the crew of the _Normandy_ deserve their death scenes on-camera, or at least as many as I can actually shoehorn into the narrative.

And yes, we now confirm what was obliquely referred to earlier; Thane was not on the shuttle when it left. Jacob (and Cerberus) assumed that he was, but that's because they didn't know about the unknowns. So, who are they? Stay tuned.

Perceptive people might notice that Jacob's tale of Samara's death doesn't exactly match up with the on-screen version. That's because he was unconscious for most of it, and only knows what he'd been told about it later. In fact, pretty much _every_ witness to that confrontation is now dead or on the run from Cerberus. So he never knew.

As to how Grunt was brought down with all the guards dead? Security mechs, and Miranda available to biotically finish him off when he was exhausted and wounded, and she was fresh.

And yes, that was a reference to the Kasumi DLC that Samara tossed out. Since I started writing this story before that DLC existed, she had no role in it, and I have no room to retcon her in ex post facto. So I figured she at least deserved an acknowledgement that she was out there, but Shepard simply didn't recruit her.


	9. Author's Note

**Author's Note**

With the release of the "Arrival" DLC and the spoilers for Mass Effect 3, "Torchbearers" is now being officially abandoned. My muse had already left me high and dry for the past months, and now the actual arrival of the Reapers and the upcoming Reaper War is going to go in directions entirely different from what I'd had sketched out for the storyline.

While I normally don't demand strict canon-compliance from either myself or fics I am reading, I'd wanted my continuation to be 'plausible from canon', as opposed to 'wildly AU from canon', and now my intended plotline has been overtaken by canon events and rendered obsolete.

If, and I mean _if_, Mass Effect 3 turns out to have a plotline that I can fit fairly seamlessly into what I've already established for 'Torchbearers', then I might restart the story. However, I don't think the odds of that are anything to write home about.

In conclusion, I will apologize again to my readers for letting them down, and spoil the Chekhov's Gun I'd foreshadowed but left unfired for the past several chapters.

The people in the shuttle that got away? The one that Cerberus thought Thane had stolen, but in fact he hadn't?

Tali and Legion. Who had gotten back to the _Normandy_ just before the Collector station was destroyed via a separate route, entered the ship through one of the holes torn in the lower hull rather than the airlock, and were smuggled back to humanspace with EDI's cooperation in the one part of the ship where all of Cerberus' monitoring devices had been removed; Mordin's lab. (Which, you might recall, canonically has a secret passage connecting it to both EDI's AI core and the engineering lower deck.)

That was, however, my limit for 'people reported killed off who in fact hadn't been'; Mordin, Garrus, Jack, and Shepard were still dead.

Again, I'm sorry I couldn't finish this.


End file.
